CounterGoblins(?!) dominates field of Stax in Sandusky, OH

I wrote up a tourney report, but I didn't really understand how the "child board" works, so I figured I would post it in the tourney results where it's from!

Mods, if this belongs elsewhere, please move it. I'd appreciate it muchly.

Let me start by showing my list, as that’s obviously a pretty good place to start:

Ichorid

4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
2x Bloodstained Mire

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Lotus Petal
1x Chrome Mox
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Pithing Needle

4x Ichorid
4x Ashen Ghoul
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Putrid Imp

4x Leyline of the Void

1x Vampiric Tutor
3x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Imperial Seal
4x Unmask
4x Cabal Therapy

Sideboard:
4x Pithing Needle
3x Darkblast
4x Brainstorm
1x Chain of Vapor
2x Valor
1x Scrubland

Now, probably the first thing you’re saying is, “What the heck is Valor and Scrubland doing there?” This is probably followed soon after by “Brainstorm in the sideboard? What the heck is with that?” Well, allow me to explain my decisions. I figured that since this tournament was an unlimited proxy event in a mostly Type II area, there was probably going to be quite a bit of random aggro beatdown. When things that can block Ichorid and trade with it, or even worse, beat it, start to show up my chances of winning the game start sailing out the window. I thought that a fetchable Scrubland paired with Valor would make for nice hasty first striking 3/1s, which would both allow my Ashen Ghouls to attack and survive, but also defend and survive to keep me going in the game. Brainstorm was in the side because I was hesitant to completely cut them when I took them out for the Leyline. Both of these turned out to be rather lousy moves. The Valor was not good enough alone. Ashen Ghoul wasn’t enough to stop the aggro that I met. Brainstorm I should have cut entirely; I really can’t imagine a situation where I’d rather have that just to replace dead cards. I’d rather have cards that I want, not something I’m settling for.

I believe that my deck is significantly different, and therefore worth writing a bit about, because it’s a much more controlling version than other lists I’ve seen out there. I have very few completely busted turns, I’ll admit it. I can, however, stop the opponent from moving much more than other Ichorid builds out there. In my testing, I found that Ichorid can’t get much faster. Sure, you can pull a lot of turn four kills and a good number of turn three kills, but you’re not going to be turning out consistent turn one (yeah, no) kills and only once in a blue moon are you going to hit a turn two kill. Since there ARE decks in the format that can win that fast, the optimum play style, in my opinion, is to slow them down to give Ichorid the time it needs to put on the pressure and get some beats in. I decided to switch objectives and, instead of trying to race the opponent, I will try to slow them down instead.

I made the decision to go two color because I really hated Gemstone Mines and Cities of Brass. I used to use them, and even with my older build, which was faster, Gemstone Mines had a nasty tendency to run out of gas when I needed them. This would pop up even more in a longer game, as well as the pinging to the face with every use of City of Brass. Underground Sea is reusable, fetchable, and has no drawbacks except for Wasteland, which is not so cool… but livable… sorta. The only thing I regret in losing the 5 color manabase is not being able to run Crop Rotation, which is of course a wonderful Bazaar fixer, but I can live without it.

I’ll go into my games, as this is already turning into a book, which I didn’t really want to do…

Round 1 – Pitch Long
Game 1 I got the high roll and chose to play. This was by far the most broken first turn of the entire tournament. I started out pretty standard, my hand had Bazaar, two Chalice of the Void, Ancestral, Putrid Imp and some other stuff. I put down Bazaar and used it, turning up Black Lotus and Mox Jet. Hot! I discarded the “other stuff,” one of which I believe was a dredger. Mox Jet came down with the Lotus, I broke the Lotus for blue to play Ancestral, which dredged up the dredger which did not chain together, but I did topdeck two more rather lackluster and not very memorable cards, then proceeded to play Putrid Imp and lay down Chalice of the Void for 1 and Chalice of the Void for 0. He played almost nothing that game, and I went through for the easy win. I’ll admit my stupidest move of the day here and say that all I saw was Underground Seas and guessed he was playing some kind of janky blue/black fish like my cousin does. That was stupid. Real stupid. I sided out my Chains of Vapor for the Scrubland/Valor combo. Second game he played first and dropped early Tormod’s Crypt. On my turn I Unmasked and pulled his Force of Will, then Cabal Therapied and flashed it back using my played creature to pull two Dark Rituals and a Cabal Ritual. I had murdered my hand, but he topdecked a Timetwister and played it. Note that this was rather soon after the Crypt, and I had almost nothing in the yard, so it wasn’t really doing much bad to me. He didn’t get much, and it only aided my cause when I proceeded to go crazy in dredge and start things up. He came back to do a mini-Tendrils off two Brainstorms later in the game, but it only staved off the inevitable as the 3/1s wore him down. I should also note that Leyline of the Void came down before the game in both of these, and both times they were huge. I believe he ended up with Yawgmoth’s Will in hand both games and nothing in the yard to use it on. It was sweet. I am so glad that I decided it was the right decision to maindeck that and leave it there.

Chalice for zero and one on first turn are really powerful against storm combo. He didn’t have the stuff to bounce it or stop me, so he pretty much folded instantly in game one. I made a critical error in assuming his deck simply because I don’t get to actually playtest against most decks in Vintage. I went for UB Fish because that’s what I play against the most, but it was stupid. As my cousin commented after the tournament, my deck would be a lot better if I knew the strong deck archetypes so I could make better sideboarding and especially better blind Cabal Therapy decisions. Leyline was a house in the second game, and I really used to think it was a sub-par card. This is once again me being sort of an idiot, but I was thinking about how it hurt Dragon and Ichorid, which it does, but not how much it hurts Yawgmoth’s Will and Gifts and Welder and on and on, because honestly, graveyard tricks are very plentiful in Vintage. I definitely won’t consider removing it again unless I’m expecting the most aggroey metagame ever, as the only deck it didn’t do anything for me against at this tournament was Goblins. And last, Timetwister is awesome for me when I don’t have the drawback. Late-game Timetwister can suck for Ichorid, because you’ve already removed half your dudes from the game for Ichorid food and now you’ve got to find the rest, but with all the crap recycled back in. In this case, however, my yard was almost empty and he just gave me a new hand to play with. It could’ve given him the win, but it really ended up handing it to me instead. It could have been a decent play, but he should have waited a bit. Ichorid is a threat that you can see coming and respond to. It’s not like I can whip it all out during my turn and “go off” for the win, because the Ichs have to be in the graveyard already.

2-0-0 so far. An excellent way to begin.

Round 2 – Gifts
I had never played against Gifts before, as I don’t go to a ton of tournaments, so I was interested to see how this played out once I figured out what he was actually playing. In the first game I had pre-game Leyline once again, which he was quite unhappy about. He was feeling good, though, when he Tinkered for Colossus second turn. I turned things around by Chain of Vaporing it at the end of his turn and leaving him with the big dude in hand for the rest of the game. His Tinker was removed from the game, anyway, so that solution was gone for good. He tried to get some answers, but I kept an eye on his hand with Cabal Therapy as I swung in for the win. The next game was the longest game I have ever played with Ichorid. I began with pre-game Leyline once again, and it turned out to be wonderful yet again. He Tormod’s Crypted me rather early, removing a couple dredgers, an Ashen Ghoul, and an Ichorid. It wasn’t good, but it was still possible. He kept me off-balance and I ended up going most of the way with Putrid Imp jacked up on Threshold ‘roids. He had his Colossus in hand early, but he didn’t have a Brainstorm or a Tinker. Gifts resolved not once but twice, The first time he went for some mana fixers, and I gave him Lotus Petal and Mox Sapphire. He was getting rather close to being able to hardcast Colossus, which I did not want happening. I had lost control of his hand because another Tormod’s Crypt had worn away much of my graveyard and ability to remain in good board position. In addition to the Crypting, he kept Stifling my Bazaar activations and Ichorid renimates. The second time he went all out tutors, pulling Merchant Scroll, Mystical, Vampiric, and Demonic. I gave him Vampiric and one of the others, figuring Vampiric would at least help my clock. I really have no idea why he didn’t pull a Brainstorm and the Tinker to pop out the big man, but I suppose I will never know. We hit time and it was my turn, making him turn one of the five. On his turn one he dropped Goblin Charbelcher with not enough mana to activate it. Even though I was starting to be able to bring up an Ichorid or two, I was still not able to go lethal on him. His KEY error was sideboarding OUT Mana Severance and keeping Recoup. If he had kept it, he would’ve won, as he tutored for it and didn’t find it. His first belch turned up only a single damage. He Time Walked out of that and belched again. He need eleven damage to win, but could only get five out of it. Too much land to belch out a smash without Mana Severance, I guess. Final life totals came to me at six and him at two.

Leyline was once again the win here. Losing his Tinker early and losing the threat that it produced for him made him very sad, and with no way to get Tinker back he was stuck in a bad position. Though I think he should have been able to pull out another win condition, as that’s what Gifts is good at, he didn’t. The second game’s Leyline really neutered his Gifts, as he couldn’t use the graveyard tricks to get back what he wanted. Stifle ended up getting him the draw and keeping me from winning, as it really slowed down my pressure by stopping my Bazaar dredging and also he stifled two Ichorid activations which would have swung through and ended up going lethal, as he ended the game with two life. I’ll say it honestly, I think if he had played his deck better I still would have lost. The second game I think he made mediocre tutor choices, but even that would have been okay if he hadn’t sideboarded out Mana Severance. I would have no way to stop Charbelcher, but as it was he had far too much land to give me a huge smash to the face.

My win on the first game won me the game, though, so I’m 3-0-1 but with 6 points.

Round 3 – Food Chain Goblins
This is my nightmare matchup. Goblins can out-aggro me and just keep going. They trade with my Ichorids and I eventually run out of gas, turn over, and die. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this game because it was basically him running all over me the entire time. I couldn’t mount a good enough offensive, and I couldn’t remove enough of his cards to matter at all. Goblin Sharpshooter came out first game and I scooped. The next game I put in Valor, Scrubland, and the Darkblasts. I figured if I could get the Darkblast thing going I could stall him out and still win by dredging Darkblasts (slowly) to make the win. This didn’t happen when he Wastelanded my only land after Darkblasting a mere two Goblin Lackeys. I saw no more land and proceeded to get destroyed. Terrible, terrible matchup for me.

I didn’t really have much of a play against this deck, but what I tried didn’t have much merit, either. First strike wouldn’t have been enough, and the Darkblasts only would have kept me alive until he had enough mana to get the bigger beasties or more smaller beasties out in a single turn. I know you’re going to say I’m crazy stupid, but I think the solution would be to have Nether Shadow in the sideboard against aggro. I’d replace Brainstorm with it, as I can’t think of a time when I’d want Brainstorm sideboarded in. Nether Shadow is free, easily reusable, and with the Scrubland/Valor combo he could be enough to give me a fighting chance against fast weenie aggro like Goblins. I’d like to playtest this and see how it goes, because as it stands if I come up against fast aggro I’m finished.

3-2-1 overall, 2-1-0 as far as overall games.

Round 4 – Dragon Combo

I used to play Dragon Combo, and my opponent used to play Ichorid, so I thought it would be an interesting matchup. I flipped his hand early on and saw Necromancies, so I figured he had to be doing Dragon, but I didn’t see my Leylines in either game against him. The first game went heavily in my favor. He went all in on things but didn’t seem to get much out of it. On the turn before I killed him, I Bazaar dredged during my upkeep, pulled a bunch of dudes, and then proceeded to draw. I knew I had the gas to do the last damage I would need after this turn, so it was a question of drawing a card or dredging a card to win more. I chose to draw, and pulled a Chain of Vapor. On his turn, he pulled Dance of the Dead and animated the dragon he had just put into the graveyard. My topdeck, however, smote his topdeck, and he scooped the zero permanents he had remaining on the board when I bounced his Dragon back to his hand. Second game I put in my last Chain of Vapor for Lotus Petal. I should have dropped Chrome Mox, but I was stupid. It didn’t matter at all, though, I didn’t see Chrome Mox. I was stupid once again and dropped a really solid opening hand in favor of one with Leyline, and I believe that he did as well. My second hand was awful, and I ended up going to five cards and ended up with basically my first hand minus the Bazaar, but I did have an Imperial Seal. The Seal allowed me to get the Bazaar and get going, but I still made a critical error and should have just stuck with my power hand of seven cards. He Pithing Needled Ashen Ghoul early, which took my favorite dude out of the running. Even though he was running Bazaar as well, I still think he would’ve been better off Needling Bazaar. It does so much more for me than it does for him. He went balls to the wall again with his Bazaar as I prepped to start going in with only Ichorids. I had an early Chain of Vapor, and I chose to keep it instead of destroying my completely like normal. I did this by choosing not to Bazaar during my upkeep, and instead used Bazaar after drawing, thus I had two cards, dredged two cards, and then tossed my two dredgers and the drawn card (I even tossed Recall, which I figured might be a keeper but I didn’t want to go for the unknown draws) into the yard. He didn’t really follow suit, and he killed his hand down to just a Massacre, which I found with a Cabal Therapy. Since that did nothing against me and I had a Chain of Vapor in hand, I figured I was in a good position. The most mysterious play of the game was him using a Vampiric Tutor to get Stifle, then using Bazaar and discarding the Stifle, then casting Animate Dead on Eternal Witness and bringing the Stifle back to his hand. He may have had some plan for this, but I really don’t know what it was. Stifle stopped one of my Ichorids, but it really would’ve been easier to just keep it… He didn’t find his dragons anyway, and if he did he had no cards in hand to protect his combo and I would’ve just Chained him to death. The Ichorids decided the Ashen Ghouls were unnecessary and took care of the job on their own.

The first game topdeck was lucky, but if he had been playing defensively he would have been able to stop it. I think Dragon Combo stands a good chance of racing me without going all-out crazy Bazaar nuts, but that’s what he did and Dragon is a lot worse off than Ichorid without a hand. I had never slowed things down to protect a card in my hand like I did the second game, but it turned out to be an all-star play decision. There was literally no way that he was going to be able to win that game, as I had the answer in hand and ready to cast at any moment. Even if he topdecked the question he wouldn’t have the cards in hand to answer my Chain of Vapor.

5-2-1 overall games, and 3-1-0 in games. Pretty good, and enough to ensure me a place in the top 8. My last opponent for the preliminaries was the other Goblins player, this time no Food Chain but counters instead (it was crazy, I swear) and we agreed to tie to both get in. I was glad, as I knew I couldn’t beat him. We played three games for fun, and I went 1-2-0 pretty quickly. Even though I managed to Cabal Therapy first turn for three Goblin Lackies in the third game, it wasn’t enough to stop him from swinging back and beating in my face.

A 3-1-1 record is good enough to place me at I believe third or fourth in the top eight, but I’m not precisely sure on that.

Top 8 – Stax
I used to be confident about playing Stax. It should be Ichorid’s best matchup, but in trading out a bit of my speed I also trade a bit of my game against Stax. It also didn’t help my confidence that the last time I top eighted with my older, more Meandecky Ichorid build in Columbus I got my face smashed in by Roland Chang’s Stax when he popped Karn on me and just proceeded to run me off the table. I made some play mistakes in that game, though, that I was determined not to make this time.

The first game went about as smoothly as a pre-board Ichorid versus Stax matchup should go. I beat him handily without losing any life, just tapping away some permanents to Tangle Wire. I sideboarded out three Chains of Vapor for Darkblasts and put in four Pithing Needles for the Unmasks. I started out strong, with a good Bazaar dredge opening and got some dudes in the yard to start out on. Leyline had come out pre-game, and I played a Chrome Mox imprinting Vampiric Tutor, using the resulting mana to drop a Putrid Imp. He dropped an early Smokestacks and Null Rod, which very quickly shut down my mana and, over a few turns, my Bazaar as well, as I could get no more permanents to drop to the Smokestacks. With the Putrid Imp being dropped to Smokestacks and no mana for Ashen Ghouls, I turned to Ichorids and decided this one was going to be ugly. I used every draw step to dredge, and I had good luck with chaining into additional dredge cards. He blocked with Viashino Heretic and Goblin Welder once, but I still kept moving forward. At the end of the game, Ichorid finished the job and I had six dredge cards in my hand after removing all my other Ashen Ghouls and Putrid Imps to feed Ichorid’s hunger.

A good early game for Ichorid can lead to a rough later game for Stax in the Stax matchup. Sure, they can kill off all my permanents, but if I’ve got a good enough headstart on the graveyard I can swing through pretty well. Roland beat me with Karn, and I think that would be the optimal play against Ichorid for Stax. Karn himself blocks Ichorid and trumps him, but Karn also brings his friends, Smokestack and Tangle Wire, and together they proceed on a merry beatdown spree that Ichorid can’t handle. I was fortunate enough to not see Karn at all in this game, as I really don’t have an answer to him besides getting him in their hand with a Leyline out. The second game I was quite lucky that I kept chaining my dredges into additional dredgers, as I had no discard outlet to get them back into the graveyard once I pulled them. Fortune was with me, though, and the deck came through on my side.

That win got me into the top four, which I have never accomplished before. I was pretty pumped, but I knew that Goblins was going to make it as well, and I didn’t like that at all.

Top 4 – Random Crazy Janky Artifacts with Workshops

I had never met Mark Trogdon before, but after the match I realized that he made the Metalworker / Staff of Dominance combo deck that I considered playing at one point. I didn’t know much of what to expect, as I saw my cousin playing him earlier and he seemed to be going kind of on an artifact beatdown but with Tangle Wire and Wasteland / Crucible combo to slow the opponent down. I figured this was going to be a rough one.

The first game was all kinds of not good for me. He started off strong with Tangle Wire, then followed up with O-Naginata (!) and Juggernaut. This made me very, very unhappy. It got worse when he played Welder and Tormod’s Crypt, thus giving him the freedom to basically toss my graveyard as he liked. I Chain of Vapored the Juggernaut, but was only able to delay him as I couldn’t Therapy it from his hand afterwards. He replayed it and swung with the Naginata for 8, then played Crucible of Worlds and Wasteland. I don’t like to scoop in top 8 matches, but this time I wanted dinner and I was just facing absolute heaps of not good.

I sided in Pithing Needles and Darkblasts, tossing Unmasks and Chains of Vapor. I didn’t want to, but I can’t remove parts of the dredge / reanimate engine and start to win, so it came down to Unmasks and Chains. This game started out well, as I got a Darkblast in my hand and a Bazaar in play to start making moves. An early Welder fell to the blast of darkness, and things seemed to be looking even better. Granite Shard came down, and that made me unhappy. Since I had to deal with it, I chose to Pithing Needle that when I topdecked the Needle rather than Welder or Crypt. On a later Bazaar activation, I ended up with Chalice of the Void and Ancestral Recall and had to get rid of one. I chose the Chalice and dropped it for zero, thus shutting off Crypt. He started getting Wastelands like mad at this point, and my game started slowing down. When he played, in quick succession, Solemn Simulacrum (not so bad) and Triskelion (very bad), I knew things were about to take a huge dive. Trike nailed my dudes as soon as they came out, and he wore me down and out after that.

And so the afternoon ended with me going 7-4-1 in overall matches and 4-2-1 in rounds. Not so bad, but there’s certainly room to improve. The match against Trogdon was the only match where I was hurting for lands. Literally, even if I had topdecked another fetch, all of my lands had already hit the graveyard: three seas had already seen play and one had been dredged out. His deck is the kind of matchup that an older Ichorid has a better chance against, as I really have little chance of stopping him from scaling the mana curve by leaps and bounds and playing large artifact bombs with it. I’m not so great at racing, so he can find the creature he needs to smash my face in all while using Wastelands to keep me off balance. Even Null Rod, which I used to have as a 4x in my sideboard, probably wouldn’t do enough against him, as even though his utility artifacts would shut off, he’d still have Workshops to toss out the big beats.

Overall, I think people overestimated the usefulness of a single Tormod’s Crypt against me. It would get dropped and I think people sort of expected me to just roll over and die, but it’s really just not the end for Ichorid. Sure, broken at a bad time it can be the end, but if it gets dropped early (which it has to in order to avoid Therapy and Unmask) the Ichorid player can just force them to break it on their own terms. Most people consider a big dredger or two and an Ichorid worthy to remove, and I think they’re probably right, but there’s a lot more to come, and unless more solutions come along it’s only been a minor setback. When it’s paired with a recurring ability, like in my match with Trogdon, well… that’s the end.

I like the changes that I made to the deck, and I feel it works a lot better for me than the older versions I used to play. I am seriously considering putting Nether Shadow in the sideboard over Brainstorm, though, as I can’t see any other viable alternative to weenie aggro. Nether Shadow both fits into the deck easily and also has no problems with casting, which every other solution has. Engineered Plague, Massarcre, they’re too expensive to use, and the ones that aren’t hose me as well. I don’t like to just hope my nemesis isn’t in the metagame, so I’d prefer to be prepared for the eventuality…

I think that’s it. Sorry I wrote a book, but there’s a lot to talk about. Comments and criticism are welcome!