Ichorid

[Lunar]

@ nantuko...

It was just a thought, but the benefits would be related to the ones YOU and a couple of others already mentioned...you mention green and red, and you are already in black...ray of revelation and balance possibly in white, blue is there already as well..

thats 5 colors...so a 5 color base didnt seem terrible...

Just an idea.

[Cross]

I played against this deck at the NY power 9 tournament this weekend. Though I 2-0d the deck I found it to be much more powerful than I had originally thought.

What impressed me was the clock that it threw down. Because I was playing confidant combo I was always a turn ahead of it, but against most decks it would be incredibly fast.

Also what impressed me was that your opponents counterspells are irrelevant. The ichorid player doesnt really need to play any actual spells, they just need to disrupt their opponent enough to stop them form winning, similar to oath. I can't imagine how awesome the stax game is, no matter how locked you are you just need to dredge to win.

I think that if the deck was built to reliably win against tormod's crypt and pithing needle the deck would definitely be the best aggro deck in the format.

[Khahan]

I wouldn't bother posting it at all, but while playing this against myself with GWS Oath, it was completely mauling the Orchard deck in game after game.

I'm sorry, this statement is either a joke or you were playing oath very poorly.  Perhaps you really wanted this to succeed, so sub-consciously you were not playing Oath up to par. Or perhaps you just don't know how to play oath.


I tested your deck against a raw, unrefined early version of my oath. We're talking about a year old, maybe 2nd draft. It has maindecked Iridescent angel and arcane labs!

Your deck didn't win a single game. It never got the chance against a very poor and rather slow oath deck.

It came close. Whenever it had a turn 1 bazaar it could at least make a half decent showing. Once, it even beat the oath deck down to 4 with 3 recurring ichorids and 2 spirit tokens from the orchard. But this deck does not beat oath. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it doesn't beat oath in any of its incarnations.  I'd gladly play you in a tournament with a refined/tuned Oath deck. I believe I would have the better part of 50 mins to relax and scout out who I'll be playing in the 1-0 bracket.

In this decks favor though, it can come close. A few games if you simply had disruption or a way to slow me down a turn or two, it would  have won some of the games. I play a very control heavy oath and I sat with counters in my hand until I won.  A bit more disruption (sorry, but 4 cabal therapies just isn't enough) and may get some wins out of it.

But I find your comments abot 'mauling' orchard decks dubious at best.

[Moxlotus]

I found the match to be 50/50.  It is simply 2 decks goldfishing and seeing who can come out faster.

[Gekoratel]

I recently played against the Ichorid deck at the Baldwinsville, NY P9 tourney with GWS and got totally wrecked the games weren't even close.  I made 1 misplay and 1 small sideboarding mistake but the games never really felt like I had a chance.  Game 1 I had first turn Imperial Seal for Oath with Orchard in hand; his first turn was dropping Bazaar and setting up dredge + ichorids.  My 2nd turn was playing Oath off orchard and passing the turn.  On his turn he did more dredging attacked with 3x Ichorids and sacked my token to therapy.  My 3rd turn was doing nothing and waiting to end step the token as to avoid Cabal Therapy but by the time I could get 1 creature into play my life was so low that I didn't have a chance.

The post-board games consisted of him dredging into Ray of Revaltion * 3 + Riftstone Portal, I'm sure I wasn't playing the match optimally as I had never played the matchup before but if those games were any sign it didn't seem very good for the GWS Oath player.

[Hillboy]

I'm just wondering if anyone has playtested Last Rites from oddysey. Seems like a solid turn 1 swamp dark ritual last rites pitching ichorid or dredge spells then stripping your opponents hand. I think this deck has possibilites and I really like it.

[Khahan]

I'm just wondering if anyone has playtested Last Rites from oddysey. Seems like a solid turn 1 swamp dark ritual last rites pitching ichorid or dredge spells then stripping your opponents hand. I think this deck has possibilites and I really like it.

Possibly, even better, is [card]strongarm tactics[/card]. Get rid of one of their cards and they lose 4 life. One less attack w/ ichorid. There are a lot of decks out there that don't run creatures and wouldn't discard them. Of course, the few decks that would discard the creature will probably rape ichorid with it.

[sa17dk]

I'm just wondering if anyone has playtested Last Rites from oddysey. Seems like a solid turn 1 swamp dark ritual last rites pitching ichorid or dredge spells then stripping your opponents hand. I think this deck has possibilites and I really like it.

Possibly, even better, is [card]strongarm tactics[/card]. Get rid of one of their cards and they lose 4 life. One less attack w/ ichorid. There are a lot of decks out there that don't run creatures and wouldn't discard them. Of course, the few decks that would discard the creature will probably rape ichorid with it.

Last Rites would be able to actually disrupt the opponent. Strongarm doesnt.

[BigMac]

I made a version to test it some. I really liked it and it was very fast. However, i seemed to never have more than 2 mana on the table and most of the time this mana was 1 land and a mox jet, mox emerald, mox diamond or a chrome mox. Otherwise i would have 1 land max when my opponent died.

It still has a lot of work needed as my version is black and green only but it is very promising so far.

My point, dark ritual is really not a card i will be playing in this deck as it has no use whatsoever. For the same reason i will not play cards costing me more than 2 mana. I am playing life from the loam and even that one i seldom play. I have them to recur my bazaar or to get a dredge card in the yard.

As i have 4 bazaars and 3 ways to find it, chances are i will have one in my opening hand or get one soon enough. More than that you do not need.

So far i have to make a sideboard, but i am thinking of heavy crypt hate.

[Chiz]

I was one of the 2 member of Team Polska playing Polskagorid (Our build of Ichorid). In 2 tournaments, I went top8 (In a local, 42 players tournanement) and 4-2 (In Baldwinsville) with that deck. That isn't bad at all, the deck is good, especially against control and stax, but the deck fears combo a lot... And say what you want, Oath isn't a bad matchup at all. I know that my results with the deck won't impress narrow-minded people, but I don't care: You did the same with Bomberman, you finded it a bad combo deck, while most of the time its an Aggro-Control deck. Bomberman made 3 top8 in P9 tourney in USA and most people in USA still don't recognize that's a good deck...

Anyway, here is the deck we played in Baldwinsville:

Martin Bonneville
Polskagorid

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
4 Tolarian Winds
2 Putrid Imp
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 imperial Seal
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Deep Analysis
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Psychatog
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Ichorid
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
3 Ray of revelation
1 Riftstone portal
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor


Some explanations:

Ray of revelation + Riftstone portal: Against Oath and Dragon

Chalice of the Void:  Against Combo. That deck simply loose to combo, you need somthing to stop them.

Pithing Needle: Mainly against Crypt

Chain of vapor: Random removal, good against Colossus, Pithing Needle (Naming Bazaar), Platinium Angel, etc...

Only 2 Togs: You almost never go to 3 mana with this deck. If you play a 1st or 2nd turn Tog, it will be huge, otherwise you don't want a tog in the game. Maybe in the next version we will play no tog at all... (In 2 tournaments, I killed only 1 time with tog)

No Life for the loam: We wanted a version more aggressive, so we cut the Life. Life is good to bring back Bazaar, sure, but that doesn't count as a creature for Ashen Ghoul and Ichorid. Life from the Loam slows the deck a little.

Golgary Thug:  We wanted to improve the number of Dredge cards with the cut of Life from the Loam. Golgary Thug was pretty obvious, since that's the 3rd best dredge Card. That's a black creature, so that boost Ahsen Ghoul and Ichorid. It happened some times that I dredged it in my draw step, just because I wanted to flashback a cabal therapy. As a bonus, you may somthimes put back a Tog on top of your Library (That never happen in tournament, you will probably win or loose before that).

I'm just wondering if anyone has playtested Last Rites from oddysey. Seems like a solid turn 1 swamp dark ritual last rites pitching ichorid or dredge spells then stripping your opponents hand.

I don't think Dark Rituals should be in this deck. That's a deck that runs with little mana (1 Underground Sea and 1 Mox usually). That's why I don't see le Last Rites being good at all. That costs 3 mana, which is too much for this deck (I don't usually have enough mana for Tog, how can I have 3 mana for Last Rites!?)

I recently played against the Ichorid deck at the Baldwinsville, NY P9 tourney with GWS and got totally wrecked the games weren't even close. I made 1 misplay and 1 small sideboarding mistake but the games never really felt like I had a chance. Game 1 I had first turn Imperial Seal for Oath with Orchard in hand; his first turn was dropping Bazaar and setting up dredge + ichorids. My 2nd turn was playing Oath off orchard and passing the turn. On his turn he did more dredging attacked with 3x Ichorids and sacked my token to therapy. My 3rd turn was doing nothing and waiting to end step the token as to avoid Cabal Therapy but by the time I could get 1 creature into play my life was so low that I didn't have a chance.

The post-board games consisted of him dredging into Ray of Revaltion * 3 + Riftstone Portal, I'm sure I wasn't playing the match optimally as I had never played the matchup before but if those games were any sign it didn't seem very good for the GWS Oath player.

If that was your 6th round, you played against me!  I wasn't even close of loosing these 2 games... And that's the way to play against Oath, sac the token with Therapy (that gives you 1 more turn to kill him), bring back Ichorid and Beat. Even if the Oath player wait for the EoT to give you a token, he will propably won't be able to oath a 2nd time (Since you will sac all with Therapy at your turn). That gives you more time to kill him. If you reach to 3 Manas, you can brign back Stinkweed Imp to block Razia too 

[nataz]

Alright, I proxied and MWS'd a bunch of different lists up this weekend, and ran them though my gauntlet of two-fisting, testing with friends, and testing with randoms. I used both Zeng's list, and Chiz's list for the initial builds, but then pretty quickly tried out a whole slew of more/less radical ideas. I steered clear of Godders list, mainly because by the time I noticed it, I was already wary of tog in the deck, let alone as a 4 of. Still, his list raises some interesting questions, especially when compared to many of the others (the inclusion of careful study and only 8 black creatures).

I'm not really sure the deck is viable, but it certainly is interesting (and sometimes even fun). So in an attempt to frame the discussion in the thread, let me highlight a few points/questions.

1) Ichorid.dec is sloooooow, but thats okay, because the kill can cost zero mana, leaving all your resources open for disruption. Like thug said earlier, its gonna be the balance of disruption that makes, or does not make, this deck viable. Do you focus more on the "all-in" mentality of dredging from the start, or do you wait and try and play a real aggro-control strategy? i.e., first turn, on the play w/ a mox + blue land. Do you play tolarian winds or do you play the Fiend?   

2) Ichorid deck has major problems with the following common card, Crypt. Bad times are also seen with Leyline, planar void, E-plauge and platz. How often will you see these cards game 1? What is your plan for almost certainly seeing one of these game 2?
 

3) How man black creatures do you need for Ichorid to run correctly? Range I have seen in the thread has run from 8 (Godder) - 15 (Zeng). Is this variable depending on how "fast" you expect your deck to run? i.e., are you making multiple swings with single ichorids, or are you making 1-2 big swings with multiple ichorids?

4) Back up win conditions? Tog seems too expensive (especially at only 18ish mana), ZI seems slow and you never have that many cards in hand, Ashen still dies to GY hate. On this topic also, are you fast enough that you dont need wonder (and the island that wonder implies)?

5) Disruption package? Therp seems like an auto 4-of, yet godder only has 3. Besides that I've seen chalice (which is terrible vs welder), Null rod, MD darkblast, and circular logic. If you are going to play a slower aggro-control rout (and w/out FOW to boot) only 4 cabal therp seems like trouble. Do you back it up with creatures (zeng), or mana denial (chalice, null rod, LFTL)?

6) Mmm, the draw package. 4x bazzar is a given, but beyond that? Tol winds (instant, your entire hand, 1U) can be really good, especially first turn, but is it really better then breakthough (sorc, 4 cards, U)? 1 mana difference can mean a lot in this deck considering the curve tops out at 2ish, and even a first turn TOL will only net you 4 draws on the play. Not that EOT TOL isn't really nice of course.

Beyond that we have Deep A and careful study. If you don't run careful study, do you need to run imps (or another discard outlets)?

7) How much mana? Ive seen anything from 17-> 21.

8) How much other *stuff* can you put in before the dredge engine breaks down? Demonic, Vamp, Timewalk, Will, Cropper, etc all seem like powerful additions, but how many stinkweed imps and black creatures can you actually afford to cut?

As for my current lists, they are all over the place and I don't think they would add much to the actual discussion. Things that are working for me, and now go in as a skeleton w/ and Ichy deck I try are the following:

MD
1x Swamp
1x Island
2-3x Underground
1x Tropical Island
5x Mox
1x Lotus
4x Polluted

4x Bazzar
4x Grave Troll
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Cabal Therp

SB:
2x Ray Of Revalation
1-2x Riftstone Portal
4x of something to deal with Tormods

and 2x-4x Chain of Vapor somewhere between the MD and the SB

[prometheus829]

Two of the restricted cards are almost necessary, time walk and crop rotation.  Beyond that, it gets fuzzy.

What cards do you want to tutor for? just bazaar?  That adds vamp and seal, but DT seems pretty much like a black sylvan scrying to me.  Is Entomb that much better than putrid imp?

Ancestral is fine, if you've got the commitment to blue.  It can be a first turn discard outlet, but it's still not much better than careful study.

What application does will have?  Replaying moxen?  Everything else it seems like you either don't need to replay or don't want to.

Would candelabra of tawnos be worthwhile?  It's another disruptive element, and gives you multiple bazaar activations.

Optimizing this deck is just an exercize in balance.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

I think that Null Rod deserves to be main decked or at the very least sideboarded, simply because it slows down your opponent and shuts off Tormod's Crypt. As for your other points, other people that have done more testing then me should consider and evaluate your ideas.

[Moxlotus]

People need to play less Tolarian Winds and more Breakthrough.  Breakthrough is a mana cheaper, more broken, and doesn't require you to play with off color moxen.

Also, I played an Ichorid deck at a Ruby tournament today without Walk, DA, or Tog and I was extremely happy none of those shitters were in the deck since I never had 2 mana during my mainphase that I wasn't casting a Breakthrough or disruption spell.

I had mainboard Leylines of the Void to shore up the combo match (and since the only cards I ever saw were in my opening hand anyways) with Chalice and Needle in the board.  I still got sacktapped by Crypt and lost 2 matches because of it.

Ashen Ghoul is still really good.  I played 3 and wouldn't play any different number.

[RaZe]

I was one of the random ppl Nataz played at MWS, and I must say the deck suprised me. I wish we could have played more games to see the more of the match up. I was using Uba stax, and Tangle Wire saved my ass on the match up so many times due to the active player priority rule. [and as you all know that Evenpence is raving about T.Wire in stax as of late] This deck simply needs a consistent supply of disruption. Tog doesn't seem to be the best creature with what I saw in the match. Maybe it's because getting the mana against Uba is quite a challenge.

Null Rod seems to expensive and random. 2 to shut off primarily moxens. I'd rather use those mana to cast Hymns. Plus I think 1 more darkblast main would be nice to answer all the early welders and orchard tokens [if you don't have Therapy]

[thokash]

I'm pretty sure the core creatures will look something like this:
4x Ichorid
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
3-4x Ashen Ghoul
3-4x Black Creature (Tog, Mesmeric Find, Pit Imp)

Uncertain which way to lean on the restricted cards at the moment.  The really only worthy one has been Crop Rotation, although first turn Ancestral is nothing to sneeze at.  Unfortunately, they only end up pulling their weight if they are in your starting hand, and something like Time Walk I found myself Bazaaring away my hand before I even got to play it.  Would Balance be an appropriate inclusion? (I actually run 4x City of Brass/4x Gemstone Mine because of Ray of Revelation in the side).

I'm not really sure how Breakthrough is better than Tolarian Winds.  The great thing about TW is you get to pitch the dredge cards in your hand first, and then dredge them up again.  Breakthrough however does seem pretty sweet, acting like a superior Brainstorm for this kind of deck.  I myself play Careful Study, but might consider Breakthrough in its place.  Tolarian Winds however, does its job double time by acting as a discard outlet and then letting you dredge at the same time.  In any case, I agree with Moxlotus that Deep Analysis is total wang.  Why not just play Life from the Loam, and from basically the same casting cost you get Bazaar of Baghdad back as a permanent source?

What do you guys think of running Wastes/Strips?  Theoretically, they should be a house since you don't need to waste time dropping mana sources and can therefore spend your time disrupting your opponent's manabase.  In practice however, I have found them to be extremely sub par.  Anyone else tried them out?

BTW, Moxlotus, did you want to post/PM me the list you were testing?

[Godot]

People need to play less Tolarian Winds and more Breakthrough.  Breakthrough is a mana cheaper, more broken, and doesn't require you to play with off color moxen.

How is Breakthrough anywhere near as broken as Tolarian Winds?  Tolarian Winds is the single most busted play this deck can make simply because its the only card you can run that allows you discard your dredge in hand before you draw cards.  Its harder to make the turn 1 Winds happen, but the fact is that when you do your chances to win that game go through the roof since you'll likely have milled 15-20 cards before turn 2.  Breakthrough is weaker in two ways.  First, you cant actually dredge anything since you draw cards and then ditch everything.  Secondly, you have to ditch all your cards.  This impedes your ability to maintain ainy kind of pressure since you cant develop your manabase further and thus cant fully utilize things like Deep Anal or Ashen Ghoul.  Careful Study really does everything that you need Breakthrough to do, but it lets you maintain pressure on your opponent. 

I steered clear of Godders list, mainly because by the time I noticed it, I was already wary of tog in the deck, let alone as a 4 of. Still, his list raises some interesting questions, especially when compared to many of the others (the inclusion of careful study and only 8 black creatures).

Are you talking about my list or did Godder post a list in a different thread?  It sounds like mine except I defnitely had 15 black creatures.

[nataz]

godet, godder, darn close

I just went back to re-read your list, and somehow I a) didn't notice that the thugs are black *not* green as I had suspected, and b) had mis-counted by 1. So the creature count isn't as odd as I initialy thought.

Still, 4 tog? How often were you actualy casting this?

[BigMac]

My decklist is getting closer to completion now. I am trying null rod main deck now but as amny have pointed out, two mana is hard to get early on and otherwise it will be dredged into yer yard.

If you play golgari thug, do not play him as a beater as you do not want to put critters back on top, whichever one it is.

I have cut blue altogether. Although you do not really need a manabase, i think that you do need 1 or two mana to stay in contest as you will be needing to get your ashen ghouls out as well as your ichorids. This will put your opponent on an even faster clock. With a more stable manabase your own mana will not be as easy to disrupt making your life from the loam better early game and later game to retrieve your bazaars when needed. As for ray of revelation (excelent sideboard card), no need to make you base less as you can go for the flashback cost easy every time as you will be discarding it most of the time anyways.

With black you do not have many draw possibilities. Bazaar is the best one and i have found that Barren moor works well also. You can use your LotL to keep your drawengine going.

As disruption i have darkblast and cabal therapy.

With black you do not have to many discard outlets. I have found that either bazaar or putrid imp will do nicely early on. The imp can always be saced for a therapy getting you a black critter in the yard for ichorid. My searchcards, crop rotation, vapiric and demonic will almost make it a certainty that you have one of those two early one making your deck pretty fast. Right now i am playing a mox diamond, chrome mox, mox jet, mox emerald and black lotus, but i am seriously doubting the lotus in my build as it is almost always suboptimal.

As for black critters. I have the imps, the ashen ghoul, the ichorid and the stinkweeds. As for other critters i have the trolls. Making 20 critters of which 12 you can give to ichorid and of which 4 can do the same damage as ichorid but stay on the board.

This deck is pretty fast in itself. People saying it is slow do not understand it well i think.

In my oppinion tog is a very very very bad critter in this deck. Mostly when you get time to cast it it means you have no discard or draw outlet making your tog less usefull anyways as your yard will be pretty empty.

Untill now i really like the green/black version i made. It certainly will make my sideboard somewhat easier to make i think. However, I still have to look at the blue possibilities as tolarian winds is a really cool card for this deck and perhaps warrants a closer look. The downside for me is the use of more moxen (pretty dead most of the time), usage of 2 mana (rather have a bazaar as landdrop than anything else), the less stable manabase (i do not want to be so wasteland dependant)

My solutions to combo are null rod, cabal therapy and chalice in the board. Blue would add stifle perhaps, again worth a look at.
My solutions to oath are ray of revelation and naturalize.
Dragon again the ray and the naturalize and the therapy to get rid of tokens or just race them.
Other decks i could just race.
The only possible problem deck i could see is possibly gobbos, but that deck hardly ever surfaces anymore.

[Hillboy]

I've been toying around with a monoblack deck a couple days and here's what I have, now I'm no expert vintage player but I know enough to get myself into trouble.

I thought about posting in the improvement forum but since there is already a thread up here I thought why make another one.

This is a budget list with only Bazaar proxied for the moment.

Mana
10 Swamp
3 Cabal Pit
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal

Discard
4 Bazaar of Bagdad
4 Putrid Imp
4 Last Rites

Creatures
4 Ichorid
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Mesmeric Fiend
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp

Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Darkblast
4 Dark Ritual

The biggest difference in the decklist is no Golgari Grave Troll. It dredges deeper but I didn't include it because it isn't black so other than dredge it does nothing(unless I missed something), I get the feeling that taking troll out is a bad idea but I wanted to try a deck without him. If I was to swap out a card it would be Golgari-Thug for this guy.

Golgari thug is okay he dredges for four can be removed for ichorid and if needed can be played and sacced to bring a Mesmeric fiend to the top of the deck, not real synergistic but replaying a fiend is more disruption.

Cabal pit is one of those iffy cards it dies to wasteland but not to 7/10 and if threshhold isn't reached turn two it soon will be so if another black source of mana is on the board it can kill a welder, a meddling mage, or what have you.

4 darkblast, it dredges for 3 kills welders and costs B making it playable.

4 Dark Ritual I know people don't like this card in the deck but I use it to power out Last Rites, Power out a mesmeric fiend see my opponents hand then drop a therapy, if either of those hit my opponent is gonna be hurting. It can also drop a putrip imp to discard a dredge card, and play mesmeric fiend. Note I feel that this can be strong off a turn one ritual after that ritual and last rites become kinda useless.

The idea behind this list is to disrupt as heavily as possible then beat. It is untested against tier one decks but I'll try to do that this week.

Where this deck is weak is a draw engine, other than bazaars and dredging the deck enters topdeck mode.

I was thinking for a sideboard what about a transformational sideboard into a more traditional suicide black, your opponent brings in graveyard hate therefore you bring in Phyrexian Negater, Nantuko Shade and Hymn to Tourach. Negator has some synergy with Ichorid anyway at least if a 1/1 blocks the negator.

I just wanted to put some more ideas out there.

[BreathWeapon]

I apologize for the one line post, but is there a reason that Vintage Ichorid decks have abandoned Cephalid Colliseum?

[Koeka]

there isn't any reason to play cephalid coliseum when you can have a free better version of it but for budget versions it does the trick most of the times

[Moxlotus]

I apologize for the one line post, but is there a reason that Vintage Ichorid decks have abandoned Cephalid Colliseum?

It doesn't produce black.  It only works if you have a dredge engine going.  You don't have 2 mana to use it usually.  If you do have 2 mana, you'd be better casting a Breakthrough/Winds.

[Chiz]

Breakthrough vs Winds:

I played both. They both are good, but pretty different. If you don't have a 1st turn Bazaar, a 1st turn Winds > Breakthrough. You will be able to dredge a lot it a 1st turn Winds and you will probably have a pretty 2nd turn, attacking with 1-3 Ahsen Ghoulg/Irochid and flashback 1-2 Therapy to screw your opponent.

After a 1st turn Bazaar, Breakthrough >>> Winds. Breakthrough will make you draw more cards, so you will be able to dredge a lot with it.  breakthrough in order to be good, need dredge cards in your graveyard, while Winds need drege card in your grave or in your hand...
Breakthrough allow you to put your moxen in play. That allow you to be able to have more mana and flashback a Deep Analysis or cast a Stinkweed Imp if needed.

I was one of the random ppl Nataz played at MWS, and I must say the deck suprised me. I wish we could have played more games to see the more of the match up. I was using Uba stax, and Tangle Wire saved my ass on the match up so many times due to the active player priority rule. [and as you all know that Evenpence is raving about T.Wire in stax as of late]

I don't know how Tangle Wire saved you against Ichorid. The A/NA rule helps the Ichorid player, this is how:
At het begining of upkeep, Ichorid and Tangle Wire goes on the stack. Since I am the active player, all my Ichorid goes on the stack and then, your Tangle Wire. In response to your Wire, I'll dredge with my Bazaar / Tap my land for Black mana and then letting resolve Tangle Wire. Afeter that, I will bring back ichorid and Ashen Ghoul (with my black mana) and I will attack you with them. Repeat every turns...

1) Ichorid.dec is sloooooow, but thats okay, because the kill can cost zero mana, leaving all your resources open for disruption. Like thug said earlier, its gonna be the balance of disruption that makes, or does not make, this deck viable. Do you focus more on the "all-in" mentality of dredging from the start, or do you wait and try and play a real aggro-control strategy? i.e., first turn, on the play w/ a mox + blue land. Do you play tolarian winds or do you play the Fiend? 

I go with the All-in mentality. That's like a combo deck. If they don't have an answer, they will die pretty fast...

2) Ichorid deck has major problems with the following common card, Crypt. Bad times are also seen with Leyline, planar void, E-plauge and platz. How often will you see these cards game 1? What is your plan for almost certainly seeing one of these game 2?

You will most likely not see any of those cards maindeck. For the 2nd game, I goes "All-in" without sideboarding cards against graveyard hate if i won't the first game, unless Pithinge Needle is really good against others cards. Against Crypt, a good play is to have a lot of mana in play, and then resolving a Grave-Troll with 4 or so counters. If they destroy your graveyard in response, you will have a good dredge card in the grave. Alwasy Keep at least 1 Ichorid in your hand, afeter a crypt, you will be able to go off with these two cards...

4) Back up win conditions? Tog seems too expensive (especially at only 18ish mana), ZI seems slow and you never have that many cards in hand, Ashen still dies to GY hate. On this topic also, are you fast enough that you dont need wonder (and the island that wonder implies)?

Tog is really expensive and is still bad against Graveyard hate.
Wonder is good against little matchup, that's why I don't include it in my list...



Hillboy:
Your decklist is more vulnerable to wasteland. Why? Because you have only 4 Bazaar as draw cards. If they waste your only Bazaar, you won't be able to drege mor than 5 every turn, which is really slow. A U-B-G version of this deck allow you to dredge more and, while dredging, finding Deep Analysis and / or Life from the Loam to help you with that situation.
And what do you do if you don't have Bazaar in your oppening hand? That's alsmost a auto-muligan, since whitout bazaar it will be very difficult to win with your build I think  (Unless you have a broken 1st turn Last Rites)

[nataz]

I don't know how Tangle Wire saved you against Ichorid.

Yea, I was having a massive brainfart that day, and stacking tangle wire totaly incorrectly. That was why in my initial post I had tangle wire under common threats, but removed it later that night. *derp* 

[Moxlotus]

The other reason I hate winds is that it forces you to run off-color moxen which are terrible for every spell ever besides Winds.  Also, if you don't have a mox in your opening hand then Winds is a turn 2 play instead of a turn 1 Breakthrough.

[Hillboy]

Hillboy:
Your decklist is more vulnerable to wasteland. Why? Because you have only 4 Bazaar as draw cards. If they waste your only Bazaar, you won't be able to drege mor than 5 every turn, which is really slow. A U-B-G version of this deck allow you to dredge more and, while dredging, finding Deep Analysis and / or Life from the Loam to help you with that situation.
And what do you do if you don't have Bazaar in your oppening hand? That's alsmost a auto-muligan, since whitout bazaar it will be very difficult to win with your build I think  (Unless you have a broken 1st turn Last Rites)

I agree totally, without bazaar my deck can lose steam quicky. I played a few games against a friend of mine the other day who played Bomberman and I did well. Presideboard I tore his hand apart with a last rites turn 1, it doesn't happen every hand but when it did it was really good. followed by therapy's I put him in topdeck mode. I let him board in and I lost to crypts and scrabbling claws. then I boarded in chalice and played it turn one for the win. I want to do further testing but it worked well. I also had my brother play my TMWA deck against it and that was a little less good. That deck plays crypt mainboard though.

[Chiz]

[I agree totally, without bazaar my deck can lose steam quicky. I played a few games against a friend of mine the other day who played Bomberman and I did well.

Well, since Bomberman is pretty popular here, I tested it against Bomberman too, and presideboard Ichorid wins pretty esaily, post sideboard, Ichorid simply loose to Crypt (And 4 Trinket to tutor it) and Sword to Plowshares and random Tinker => Colossus. Since more games are played post-sideboard, overall Bomberman wins the match.

[Hillboy]

Yeah postside board I took out 4 Last rites and 4 Darkblasts, and boarded in 4 chalice of the void and 4 coffin purge, it makes the matchup less harsh but its still not a good one.

[Koeka]

does anyone actually has a link to a powerless bazaarless list plz?(sry to bother)

Decklist requests are against the rules.  TMD has a search function for this sort of thing.  That said, I'm having trouble getting my head around the idea of a 'budget' deck running four copies of a two-hundred dollar land. Also, work on your grammar; it's terrible.

-Klep