1st Ottawa Lotus with Mana Ichorid

[Noah_33]

So I won the Lotus tourney in Ottawa with 30 people and 5 rounds with top 8. Here's my report and list:

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Unmask

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
2 Darkblast

2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Cephalid Sage

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid

4 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
1 Ancestral Recall

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal


15 Sideboard:

4 Chain of Vapor
4 Pithing Needle
3 Wispmare
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Darkblast

Round 1 I played against Artifact Fish (Artificial Inteligence) and won in 3 games. Game 1 and 3 were blowouts. Game 2 he resolved 3 Relics and I couldn't find a Needle in time. 1-0

Round 2 I played against Landstill and we all know how that match up goes... not even close. 2-0

Round 3 I played against 5 Colour Stax but with T4K and other blue spells. I won in 2 games, not close because he doesn't find graveyard hate game 2. 3-0

Rounds 4-5 I draw into top 8. 3-0-2

Top 8 I play against Painters Grindstone and win an easy game 1. Game 2 was an interesting one, he plays relic turn 1 and I Bzaar a Thug, Ichorid and a Bridge into my bin. I put Ichorid trigger on stack turn 2 and he lets it resolve. I attack for 3 and then play a Narcomeoba and he Forces it leaving him with a land in hand after counter a Careful Study earlier and a mulligan. I put the Bridge trigger on the stack after Ichorid dies and he lets it resolve and I get a 2/2 Zombie. I get him to 2 with it and he Intuitions for 3 Painter and casts 1 to block. I have 2 Chain of Vapor in my hand at this point and bounce it FTW.

Top 4 I play against MUD with Stax and win game 1 easy. Game 2 I keep a first turn win hand on the draw with:

1 Black Lotus
2 Careful Study
1 Breakthrough
2 Golgari Grave Troll
1 Chain of Vapor

So... what is going on in my mind is, is that if he does not play a Thorn, Sphere and or Trinisphere turn 1 I win even through a Tormod's Crypt/Relic/Leyline so I keep. He drops Trinisphere, GG. Game 3 I Unmask him turn 1 taking Metalworker leaving him with 2 Thorn, 1 Tangle Wire, 1 Wasteland and 2 Ancient Tomb and then I play Ancestral Recall and pass. He plays Thorn and passes. I play land Pithing Needle naming Crypt and pass holding Bazaar. He plays Wasteland on the Colisseum and passes. I play Bazaar and pitch 3 Dredgers and proceed to win with him drawing nothing to stop me.

Final I play against Bombs over Baghdad (R/G/u Fish) and crush him game 1. Game 2 (he has no right being in the finals because he forgets to board in Tormod's Crypt and has Artifact Mutation and Null Rod maindeck, lol) and I proceed to win game 2 aswell winning my 3rd Black Lotus of the year!

I would play this deck again in a heart beat due to it never loseing a game 1 on the day.

[ErkBek]

I put the Bridge trigger on the stack after Ichorid dies and he lets it resolve and I get a 2/2 Zombie. I get him to 2 with it and he Intuitions for 3 Painter and casts 1 to block. I have 2 Chain of Vapor in my hand at this point and bounce it FTW.

So is there a reason he didn't just sac a land to copy it, bouncing the Zombie that went the distance?

[Noah_33]

He didn't see it I guess.

[nataz]

How was unmask? Would you have been better served by chalice?

[Razvan]

How was unmask? Would you have been better served by chalice?

no, noah and i decided that unmask's eons better. especially now with relic, chalice becomes a lot worse. it's still good, just not as good.
unmask is the way to go. especially going first, unmask then a called cabal therapy is awesome g3.

[Noah]

agreed. Unmask was abolutely insain. It also acted as a discard outlet for me in the Semis game 1 which allowed me to win on the first turn with Careful Study and then Breakthrough off a Mox. It also allowed me to fight through Forces all day and strip draw effects and win conditions to solidify game 1s all day long. I didn't lose a game 1 all day.

[Tha Gunslinga]

What are the two maindeck Darkblasts for?  Would you consider cutting one for another Ichorid or Dread Return?

[nataz]

Interesting that you bring up relic, I haven't really seen it in decklists enough for me to really worry. That said, Ad Naus seems to be everywhere, and with it's dependence on chrome mox I figured chalice would be good.

another quickie -

Mulligans with Mana Ichorid, how do you play them? Obv if you have a bazaar you end up keeping, but how are you about keeping hands w/o bazaar? My list plays a litte difference because I'm running chrome mox instead of the 5 color lands maindeck. The positives are more first turn plays, and more cephalid col activations on both turn 1 and turn 2. The downsides are obviously the loss of the 5 color goodness in the sideboard and the random hosing by null rod/chalice.

That said, I'm finding I can't keep a hand that only sets up a first turn breakthough. I'll keep with:
bazaar + anything
study + perm artifact mana + cephalid col
active study + active breakthough (can be ceph col, non-perm mana, w/e)

and if i'm under 5 cards I'll keep an active study + anything

I feel like the extra chrome moxes help me play more loose with my starting hands, opening up lines of play a full turn earlier. Are you keeping on similar hands, and if so do you ever find yourself digging with a turn 1 study -> nothing?

[Razvan]

depends if you are G1 or G2/3. what you do is different in all 3 games.

G1, you don't keep a non-bazaar hand, unless it's silly broken, until you hit 4 cards. think about it. if you have a land and 1 careful study, you will see 2 extra cards. if you mulligan, you will see at least 6 extra cards (some not-extra, i won't do the math).

there are some 7-card hands you can keep.

something like unmask, black card, land, careful study, 2 imp/troll, maybe another blue draw spell.

as you say: study, coliseum, other mana, dredgers. the issue with this is they can force your study, and if you don't draw a dredger in those 2 cards, you are pretty screwed. you need to draw into a dredger, and into more discard. that's quite risky.

if you can cast a study, then a breakthrough, with dredgers, you are pretty good, you should keep those. especially if you have an unmask or a therapy, and they don't run wastelands.

if you have 2 mana, you can often cast a T1 therapy, T2 thug/narcomoeba, then flashback the therapy to give you a ton of turns to do things. especially if it's a thug, you can then start dredging. you might be able to keep that.

but overall, generally, you want to mulligan all the way to a bazaar. past 4 cards, you will keep anything really. if you get to 3, you will at most see 3 more cards in a mulligan. if you have a careful study, you will see only 2, but you have the possibliity to draw a bazaar, another blue draw, or a dredger which you can discard. if you can cast a careful study, i wouldn't go to 2 cards, even though you will see one more card overall.


g2 is a bit of a mess anyway. you don't know their hate, yours is mostly chain of vapor to deal with whatever. they go first, and it might not be a bad thing either, since you will see how deep they mulligan. if they keep, chances are you will lose, so be a bit more liberal. keep a hand with a bazaar for almost sure, since you will be able to draw a few times into whatever you need. if you don't have a bazaar, you might be able to keep a 7-card hand with a dredger that you discard end of turn. if they cannot hit your GY for any reason, you should be in good shape. if nothing else, try to make it into something where they need to show you their hate.


g3 you go first and should know what hate they have. other than the less played leyline, you should be ok. unmask is amazing here. you cna snag their first turn crypt or relic, and if you have unmask, therapy, land, and either bazaar/(blue draw + dredger) you should be in VERY good shape.

the more you mulligan, the less of a chance you have to get both the engine and anti-hate going, so you are sometimes more likely to keep more risky hands. it's fine if you are slower, since they are slower too, and your discard will make them even slower.

but G1, yeah, mulligan aggressively, you don't want to lose that one under any circumstances.