[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays: Improving Ichorid

[Smmenen]

Leyline was a critically important addition because it turned off Yawg Will and slowed down Welder recursion.  Much like Chalice, it bought time so that Ichorid could win the game.

Interestingly enough, with comments like yours I wonder if the 8 bauble plan is userful even at the expense of chalice. Considering that I can play though tormods with a fair degree of sucess even without chalice, and baubles do make the deck faster, I wonder if it's a valid trade off.

Your assumption is that cantrips make a deck faster right?  I mean, the idea is that if you run 8 baubles, you’ll effectively have 52 cards and thereby see the more relevant cards sooner and thereby win faster?

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that that line of reasoning has no or little applicability here. 

Think about it: Let’s take apart the reasoning a bit more.   What do we mean by Relevant cards?    The most relevant card we can all agree is Bazaar.   Yet, finding Bazaar is not the task of draw or cantrips – it is the task of Serum Powder and the mulligan.   Secondly, the speed of the deck’s goldfish is almost entirely predicated by the first discard to Bazaar.   If you discarded a dredger, you are aiming for a possible turn three kill, especially if you also discarded an Ichorid so that you may turn two Therapy.   Bauble’s, with their delayed draw, have zero impact on this.   

It seems to me that thinning the deck has almost no direct connection to the decks speed.   Even if the Baubles read:

Insane Bauble – 0
Tap, Sacrifice and draw a card
That card wouldn’t actually speed by much because it doesn’t deal with the first issue: finding the Bazaar in the first place.   

This is what I meant by “conventional” assumptions sometimes don’t apply with Ichorid – a point that I went at length to articulate in the conclusion of my article yesterday.   

While I liked your articles, one thing you never touched on is the flow of game 2/3, which in my testing is often much different then game 1.

This is true.  But I haven’t had a chance to do so yet.   I write an introduction piece on manaless ichorid, wrote a matchup piece of game 1 v. Gifts, and then introduced my mana ichorid.   I haven’t yet had a chance to present some in-game analysis.

I could have just talked generally about matchups, but it didn’t seem to me that that would be as useful as talking generally about the card choices – esp. since I intend to do matchup pieces in the future taking a look at full matches.   

My hope is that the reader would just have patience or use their own judgment until then.

You are SB'ing in a lot of cards, what are you taking out? You talk about a MD tweaked for speed,

Let’s be careful. I talk about my maindeck retaining the speed of its predecessor.   It is “tweaked” for speed in the sense that it has been developed in an effort to retain the speed of manaless Ichorid as best it can.

but those "tweaks" can not make up for the fact that you must be SB'ing out at least some dredge cards/black creatures, w/e. Seeing that you are slower g2/3, perhaps even a turn slower, depending on the hate that you see g2 it may make sense to bring in leylines for g3.

It’s true that I will be slower in game 2 and 3 – and probably more than just the turn slower you cite.   We could bring in Leylines, but that has two direct costs: first, we’d need to fit them back in.   Second, we’d have to make more room.  Are they better than what we already have?   

I played leylines in my SB day 2 mainly against ichorid and dragon, but I know I brought them in G3 against TK with pitchlong, and I wish I had in my g3 match 4 against a gifts variant.

In my view, Leyline is not the optimal card to bring in against Pitch Long.  I would much rather have Duresses.  Same with Gifts.

For instance, g3 against gifts in g4 my opponent opens with 2x tormods, AND I know he is playing pithing needle. The game went long, even with my grudges and a gemstone mine, and eventualy when I was in a decent position to force the crypt activations, I couldn't recover fast enough that his will inevitability took over. Leyline would have bought me time to recover after the crypts, perhaps only a turn more, but enough that maybe my discard could have played a role.

That’s a good point.   That isn’t to say that Leyline is bad in that situation, but are there better cards instead?   

I’ve never reanimated a Golgari Grave Troll and can’t imagine that I ever will.    That is not my answer.   My answer is: when is Sutured Ghoul not an option?  When I’ve removed them both with Serum Powder?  Has never happened.

Wow, that is a really interesting statement. I have animated trolls a number of times, even in manless ichorid due to any number of reasons. 1) Powder removes both 2) Powder removes 1, 1 is removed to an ichorid 3) Powder removes 1, crypt removes another 4) You want to bait out the bounce 5) pithing needle on bazaar, no chance to draw, huge possible troll, but no ghoul in sight 6) bomberman has thrown out a lot of blockers, disrupted your engine (either with needle or crypt) and you are runing out of black creatures

There have been a number of times that I have *almost* reanimated a Troll, but found that there was no reason to do it either because: a) it wouldn’t change the outcome of the game or b) I would have to sacrifice a Nether Shadow I wanted in play to do it.   

I also think that its possible that situations 3-6 didn’t come up because in certain matches I side out the combo and elect to just go with direct Ichorid beats. 

The fact that you have *never* had any of these things happen to you, nor do you imagine, seems astounding.

What decks are you testing against? Do you test against MD crypts? Maindeck needles?

I generally bifurcate my testing into “pre-board” and “post-board.”  I then split up my testing further into “on the draw” and “on the play.”   I will test a “game two” (meaning me on the draw) for like 10 games and then go to “game three” (meaning me on the play) for about ten games to get a feel for any given matchup. 

I have tested against decks with both MD Crypt and MD Needles (Bomberman has both). 

 True, I don't like to animate trolls, but I've had to do it multiple times in testing and in real life. Against pitchlong, prob never (although it would have been nice to block that stupid wumpas =P ), against gifts, again almost never. But against workshops with orb of dreams and gy hate, bomberman, bounce.dec, and aggro I have found trolls to be useful at times. It's a bitch when your ghoul dies to blockers beacuse of all the x/1 creatures. 

I think it may be a function of the fact that in those matchups I just sideboard out the Ghoul combo because against Fish, your clock isn’t as important as other factors such as being able to survive Wasteland + T2 Grunt or answer Needle in the Bomberman match. 

You should be stripping those from there hand quickly (go see my Gifts v.Ichorid article please .   You should be winning or have wiped their hand by the time they get back to BB2.

Oh, and welcome to dark ritual in gifts. Mox, underground, rit -> leyline. woot, frown. While this article was written before waterbury and ETW became a public crazy, we've had to deal with it in NE like forever now. Dark rit in Nate pea's deck, dark rit in crossman gifts, dark rit in brassy gifts, and now dark rit cause its good with etw. Just saying. GG's may be the only large team runing it, but a lot of people use their lists as starting points.

Take another look at my Gifts v. Ichorid article – you’ll see that I’ve been testing exclusively against Gifts that run a single Dark Ritual maindeck. 

Certainly, it is theoretically possible that if you turn one bounce Leyline they can replay it later or even replay another one, if you were to Duress them.

I started to go through hypotheticals to try and illustrate my point, but quickly realized that there are too many permutations with variations on each permutation.   I know this will come up in future articles, so I’ll address them there.   But the gist is that Dark Ritual is a deadly threat on its own terms and I would be more inclined to make them discard a Ritual in hand than even a Leyline knowing that they may be in a position to play it later. 

Oh and, t1 sol ring/vault/crypt + land, t2 trinket -> lotus -> leyline is also viable in Bomberman (tinket mage fixing mana ftw, OMG). The same can be done with different combonations of tutors (especially vamp which is really annoying against discard).   

I agree.   But even with all that being the case, it doesn’t even remotely make Emerald Charm as powerful or good as Chain of Vapor.   It is possible that they can find ways to play a Leyline, but Chain is more than up to the task most of the time.   


I

I still fail to see why you use Chain of vapor?  You apparently play in a world with no Meddling Mage nameing Dread Return, no Planar Void, and where your deck can kill faster than land-mox-rit.   

Quite the contrary – haven’t I already said that all those things exist and accounted for them?  If anything, isn’t it you – in running Charm and grudge – who are inadequately prepared to deal with the diversity of threats?   

My assumption, incorrect or not, is that most decks that run 4 Rituals aren’t going to be attempting to kill me with Leylines.  It doesn’t make sense for Pitch Long to use Leyline when they should be trying to kill me rather than waste sb space on that matchup. 

Chain of Vapor is an instant speed spell that deals with every single threat and your discard neutralizes that threat, to the extent that it remains a threat.   Your game two and three win percentages dip dramatically and it is more important than ever that you have a game plan that can be flexible.   It’s about maximizing your ability to win.   Timing plays a big part here.   

Also you make it sound like Cookie monster doesn't reliably win on turn 4.  Your deck runs MORE mana then cookie monster, but you claim it is less mana dependant.  You claim that you can dredge better than Cookie Monster, but you only run 2 more cards with dredge. 

My deck has 8 colored mana maindeck --   Is that more than Cookie monster? 

My original post was much more inquisative then you took it.  I honestly wanted to hear your answers to the questions I asked.  It seems like your response was really in my face and had the "Its better because I said so" feel to it.

I really hope that is not the case.  I realized while I was constructing a reply and afterward that I hadn’t quite captured the “tone” I was looking for.   I think this is a product of time – I probably should have waited until tonight when I could have constructed more detailed replies.   

I’m also disappointed that you think that I was claiming my list was “better because I said so.” 

I was trying to explain that we mustn’t keep our eyes off the prize.  That’s what I’m afraid these other lists are trying to do.   I feel that we are making big mistakes sacrificing speed for things that we don’t need (i.e. Ashen Ghoul).   If I didn’t sufficiently support my points, show me where and I’ll try to do a better job.   This is intended to be a dialogue – not a lecture – but I think its important that we know where we stand first.

 So my final conclution is that your deck is narrow and inflexable.  It will therefore die out faster as deck choose options that are outside the scope of Leyline of the Void.  I would venture a guess that this deck is probably and average of half a turn faster than Cookie Monster, but would loose to a wider range of hate cards.

Everything I said, I thought, suggested the opposite.  My testing gauntlet and my SB is geared toward fighting Tormod’s Crypt and Pithing Needle first and foremost and then Leyline and Planar Void secondly.  I test against all four cards are a regular basis.   Chain of Vapor was selected because it answers all four cards.   I have lots of examples of games in testing where I beat Planar Void using the plan I described above.   

[nataz]

mmm, first off thanks for the replys.

The idea with the baubles has nothing to do with the virtual 52 card deck, and more to do with the extra draw (and therefore dredge) on turn 2. Turn 1, bazaar, bauble, bauble gives you a turn 2: upkeep bauble Draw, bauble Draw, Bazaar draw, Bazaar draw, and then draw for the turn. Thats kinda insane as far as dredging goes. Are you familar with the lists? It was posted in the results forum a little while ago, and cuts both chalice and the dread return combo. I'm not sure that either move was correct, but he did place second and it was an idea I had never heard of before. 

As far as leyline is concered, I agree with wanting duress over leyline against pitchlong and gifts. Most times I don't bring them in, but I needed the space in my sideboard for the ichorid match-ups that I expected to face. Day 1 I ran tormods (.: I didn't have to run the full 4 slots) and managed to fit in more disruption elements, although in that case it was factories. BTW, have you tested factories over duress? I found that even with minimal dredge its likely to have a cabal therp in your yard on turn 1, but often you won't have a creature to bring back. You attempt to solve the problem with MD duress, but that requires both a colored source and a duress in hand after the t2 upkeep dredge effects. This can be problimatic depending on what your starting hand is. Factory only requires one card in hand, the factory, and the cabal thep can be in the gy (which is almost a given). Factory can also speed up dread return kills by either clearing the way faster with an extra therp activation, or by being the third creature.   

I found it really interesting that you SB out the ghoul combo against bomberman and fish. You cited earlier that your SB strat may possibly slow you down over a turn or more. This to me seems dangerous against bomberman which can throw out salvager and grunts to knock you around with out the ghoul combo. I find a very real problem to be runing out of black creatures, or running out of cards to bury shadow under because they can stablize with blockers early. Ghoul helps slove that by letting you take advantage of t3/t4 windows of oppertunity where you can win big all at once with ghoul rather then wining small over time.

Something interesting I've found when playing against grunt is the following. A turn 1 grunt can be starved out, with little effect on your clock. A turn 4 grunt can be raced easily. Really, grunt is most threatening on t2-t3, which makes it far from an ideal sidboard card.
 

[Smmenen]

mmm, first off thanks for the replys.

The idea with the baubles has nothing to do with the virtual 52 card deck, and more to do with the extra draw (and therefore dredge) on turn 2. Turn 1, bazaar, bauble, bauble gives you a turn 2: upkeep bauble Draw, bauble Draw, Bazaar draw, Bazaar draw, and then draw for the turn. Thats kinda insane as far as dredging goes. Are you familar with the lists? It was posted in the results forum a little while ago, and cuts both chalice and the dread return combo. I'm not sure that either move was correct, but he did place second and it was an idea I had never heard of before. 

 

Right, but my second point was that your clock is a function of your fist bazaar discard.  If you discard Troll and Stinkweed Imp and Ichorid on turn one, you can pretty much be sure that you are looking at a turn three goldfish.   See what I'm saying?  The Baubles can help your turn two dredge, but they won't make bad turn one discard turn good, except very marginally.   I mean, it's an intruiging idea I think that may actually have better applications in Manaless Ichorid since I think that is the deck that has the most dead weight right now.   

Here is my last Manaless Ichorid list:

 Manaless Ichorid

Lands
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Petrified Field
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus

Creatures
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
2 Sutured Ghoul

Free
4 Unmask
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Serum Powder
2 Dragon's Breath

Flashback
2 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy

SB:
1 Riftstone Portal
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Gemstone Caverns
3 City of Brass
4 Chain of Vapor

We could try to add 8 baubles by cutting the 4 Wastelands and 4 Chalices, although I'd probably leave the Chalices and just add 5 Baubles by cutting only Blotus and the 4 Wastelands.   

Also: In my article yesterday I talked quite a bit about MIshra's Factory.  Remember?


A few more general notes:

My goal is really to show that this deck is not only viable, but a real contender.   Everyone senses that Manaless Ichorid is really powerful game one, but the trick is: can it beat the hate?   I'm hoping that I have made some huge headway and that together we can pool our brainpower and really push Ichorid ahead. 

[Namingway]

I have a question regarding the Gemstone Caverns in the board. I already know why they're there, but I have yet to figure out what to take out.
Now, please excuse me for asking questions whose answers might be in the article, but unfortunately, I'm not premium, so I can't read it for another 75 days.

[Tobi]

The idea with the baubles has nothing to do with the virtual 52 card deck, and more to do with the extra draw (and therefore dredge) on turn 2. Turn 1, bazaar, bauble, bauble gives you a turn 2: upkeep bauble Draw, bauble Draw, Bazaar draw, Bazaar draw, and then draw for the turn. Thats kinda insane as far as dredging goes. Are you familar with the lists? It was posted in the results forum a little while ago, and cuts both chalice and the dread return combo. I'm not sure that either move was correct, but he did place second and it was an idea I had never heard of before.

The baubles can speed up your goldfish significantly. Turn one Bazaar, discard a dredger, drop a bauble (or two). Use the bauble(s) immediately, get a free draw (and dredge) on your opponent's upkeep. So you start your second turn with a lot more cards in your grave, hopefully some ichorids/shadows you can bring into play. Then use the bazaar to dredge even more and win with ghoul.

The minimum of turn 3 clock is not a problem of your second turn, but a problem of not being able to bring 3 creatures into play by turn 2, because bazaar "only" discards three, one of which has to be a dredger.

Your only chance of speeding up the goldfish is to find a way to get more cards into your grave turn one (resp. turn 1 or 2 of your opponent). This sometimes happens in the mana-versions with turn 1 imp and bazaar, but needs mana accelerants and is quite rare. 8 baubles are much more likely to be in your opening hand than one imp and a mox.

Anyway, I am not advocating the use of baubles to speed up Ichorid, just wanted to show that they can be quite effective at doing so.

[nataz]

um,

Ich and Shadow trigger at the begining of your upkeep, so I'm not sure how extra draw on turn two would be any good for getting more then 1/2 creatures back. The only way you get more creatures out with bauble is with either ashen ghouls and mana of some sort, or you manage 3 ich discard on turn 1, and an amazing dredge turn 2 (where obv. the baubles would help). I was looking at the baubles as helping with the sometimes marginal draw of shambling shell by putting the trigger on the stack, resp with bazaar dredgeing shell, discard shell, and then dredging again with bauble. Thats at least 6 cards even with only a shell which isnt bad.

IMO, the best way to win turn 2 in my opinion now is with gemstone cav -> ashen, and either pimp or factory with an ichorid out in the normal fashion. Baubles help too for the extra dreadge and ghoul food. The real question for me is how much does going second matter (for use with cav.).

Oh, and steve, that is another reason why I think your look at ashen my be flawed. It's less for the beats, and  more for the turn two play. Again, only needing 1 card in hand after turn 2 upkeep (black land to bring back ashen) is better then trying for a land and a duress, given of course that cabal is almost always in the gy by turn 2. This is besides the fact that in the gy even without mana it does something, unlike duress. 

Has anyone thought of using gamble with the new esg? I've been goldfishing and doing some limited testing with it, but I'm totaly unconvinced its needed. It is however a cute trick.

[policehq]

Nataz, a Bauble activation on your turn 1 will allow you to Dredge during your opponent's upkeep. If you discard a Nether Shadow turn 1, discard an Ichorid turn 1 or Dredge Ichorid turn 1.5, you can activate them both.

This is why my Manaless Ichorid list posted earlier also had 4 Mishra's Factory, but I think if I wanted to try and get a turn 2 lethal Sutured Ghoul, I'd have to play 4 Devouring Strossus instead of Gigapede for that rare play. The 4 Mishra's Factory and 4-8 Bauble add the potential of 8 more creatures (4 Nether Shadow, 4 Mishra's Factory) to be in play turn 2 for a Cabal Therapy, adding to the turn 2 interaction.

-hq

[meadbert]

If you start to maindeck enough lands like Factories and Wastelands then that opens up playing with Morphed Creatures out of the board as a way to dodge graveyard hate.

Also Basking Rootwalla functions similarly to Mishra's Factory and actually comes out on turn 1 allowing for a turn 1Therapy.

[Smmenen]

@Meadbert:

As a pioneer of the manaless Ichorid deck and as my list is an attempt to retain as much of the strengths of that list as possible, I am very curious as to what you think of my attempted answer to what I understand to be the two larger threats to Ichorid: a) faster decks and b) hate.   I am specifically curious if you would be so gracious to address whether you think I have addressed either one of those problems and which ones and to what degree.   If you think that my tactical plays and card choices are lacking in some way in addressing those problems, I would further be interested in any counter solutions that you may have thought up.

@ Nataz: you mentioned via PM a spell that cost BU as a potential solution – do you still think that this card, whatever it may be, would be potentially useful? 

Regarding Ashen Ghoul:  Are you suggesting that Ashen Ghoul may have utility because I can bring it into play on turn two with Gemstone Caverns?   

[nataz]

mmm, I totaly missed that bauble was opps turn, not yours. Even more interesting. My bad.


@ Steve
ahhh, the infamous sb solution for ichorid that I was obsessed with for days on end

Well, simply put, it was a transformational sb into

DOOOOOOMSDAY

rawr.


It dodges GY hate (always, otherwise what is the point), and bounce (or at least some of the stacks do), which leaves only counters really to worry about. Unless of course you are me, and mull down to 5 get a doomsday off first turn on the play, and lose to a SOR from stax on their turn. Sigh. (in reality, you should prob *not* sb these in against stax)

Basicaly it works like this.

SB in

4x Doomsday
4x Dark Rit
Any combo peices
and then either tutors or more land

SB out w/e depending on the build, but leave enough in so that you can go aggro beats if there is no leyline, or the gy hate comes into play late and you can flashback therp.

My favorite SB was

4x Doom
4x Dark Rit
1x Recall
1x Minds Desire
1x Lotus
1x Beacon
2 - 3 tutors or land(or artifact accel) depending on the build and what I had maindeck

The idea is to go

T1: Lay Bazaar -> dig for Doomsday/Dark rit/Lands

T2: Ly U/B producing land -> Hard cast cabal therp/duress/tutor

T3: land 1 -> Duress/Cabal therp, lay second land -> Dark Rit -> Doomsday, with a stack of Recall, Lotus, Desire, Rit Beacon. Pass the turn

T4: go off fo the win.

You need a U and a B mana after you cast doomsday for that stack to work, hence the UB comment.

Obv obv multiple art. accel/dark rits/ whatever can make you go off faster, but that was the basic idea.

Other stacks included helm of awakening, show and tell, eureeka, SHARED FATE (OMG) - and Balance (which we were always 1 mana/1 turn short of getting to work perfectly), Draco/explosion for 16, soul spike for 4, and lots others.

We stayed away from anything that used the gy like will and dragon cause otherwise what's the point. There are pro/con's to each stack. There are stacks that take no mana, and with a bazaar on the table go off that turn, but require lots of cards in hand. There are stacks that require 1 mana, and pass the turn, but don't quite kill the opponent, there are stacks that cost 2 mana and pass the turn with no cards in and (like the classic beacon kill) that kill on the next turn, and there are 1 mana infiny dmg kills that requre passing the turn and 1 specific card in play before you go off. There are lots of stacks.

Of note, I always choose to draw rather then play for the extra card to cycle to bazaar, which makes me wonder how good cav would be.

If anyone wants to talk more about the idea, thas cool, although it would probably just clutter this thread.   

[meadbert]

@Meadbert:

As a pioneer of the manaless Ichorid deck and as my list is an attempt to retain as much of the strengths of that list as possible, I am very curious as to what you think of my attempted answer to what I understand to be the two larger threats to Ichorid: a) faster decks and b) hate.   I am specifically curious if you would be so gracious to address whether you think I have addressed either one of those problems and which ones and to what degree.   If you think that my tactical plays and card choices are lacking in some way in addressing those problems, I would further be interested in any counter solutions that you may have thought up.

I do not have much to say regarding faster decks.  It is still my experience that Leyline of the Void is good enough to keep Long from going off on turn 2 the vast majority of the time.  I realize my testing is flawed since neither I nor my play test partners are particularly good with Long.  Still, I am happy with Leyline.

Regarding your sideboard, I think it is brilliant in what appears to be the new metagame.  The trouble with most Enchantment removal solutions for Leyline is the classic prior knowledge problem.  I can put 10 cards in the board to combat Leyline, but I am still not boarding them in game 2 because most decks do not run Leyline.  By the time I see Leyline game 2 I only have one chance to get lucky and beat it.  By using cards that are more generic like Chain of Vapor you can board effectively without knowing which hate it is that you are combating.  This is very useful.

I still find most of the Leylines floating around to be suboptimal in the decks they are in and I hoping it is a fad.  I mean who wastes 4 slots in their board hating out a deck that has never top 8ed.  If Leyline usage decreases then hopefully we can go back to worrying primarily about Tormod's Crypt.

I still find it contradictory that every deck in Type 1 except Manaless Ichorid now seems to want to board in Leylines while Manaless Ichorid does not.  Something has to give there.  If Leyline is good for Slaver it is good for Manaless Ichorid.

Regarding Wasteland versus Leyline.  Wasteland may very well be better.  Leyline shuts off Gifts Ungiven and Intuition fairly well, but Wasteland shuts off Gifts especially because it is tough to get the mana up.  I still have the problem of too many lands.  Two Wastelands might be about right.

Regarding 4 or 0 Leylines.  Everyone acts as though any number of Leylines that is not 4 or 0 is wrong.  This may not be true.  Remember that the second Leyline does little since the first is rarely bounced and when it is it is likely to be Echoing Truth that bounced it.  Because Leyline is redundant in multiples your 4th Leyline is much less valuable then your first.  It might be that the right number of Leylines is 3.

Now if your strategy involves mulliganing to Leylines then more is better, but Manaless Ichorid does not mulligan to Leyline so three or even two might be correct.

[Smmenen]

@Meadbert:

As a pioneer of the manaless Ichorid deck and as my list is an attempt to retain as much of the strengths of that list as possible, I am very curious as to what you think of my attempted answer to what I understand to be the two larger threats to Ichorid: a) faster decks and b) hate.   I am specifically curious if you would be so gracious to address whether you think I have addressed either one of those problems and which ones and to what degree.   If you think that my tactical plays and card choices are lacking in some way in addressing those problems, I would further be interested in any counter solutions that you may have thought up.

I do not have much to say regarding faster decks.  It is still my experience that Leyline of the Void is good enough to keep Long from going off on turn 2 the vast majority of the time.  I realize my testing is flawed since neither I nor my play test partners are particularly good with Long.  Still, I am happy with Leyline.

I assure that manaless Ichorid loses by a substantial margin to Pitch Long in my testing both two-fisted and against teammates of the calibre I referred to earlier. Unfortunately, I do not anticipate being put in a position where I can demonstrate this fact as all my future matchup articles will probably be using my mana list, which was motivated in part to not concede the combo match.   

If it helps clarify why Pitch Long wins, in my testing there were essentially three categories of games:

1) Pitch Long Blow outs - these are obvious

2) Manaless Ichorid blow outs- these were very rare and essentially and almost exclusively involved both Unmask and Chalice on turn one and often another card like Leyline and or turn two Cabal Therapy

3) Games in which Ichorid appeared like it was going to win, but Pitch Long ended up winning.   At least 50% of the games and probably upwards of 60% fit this category.    What this signaled to me is that these games required excellent technical play for the Pitch Long player to win.   It seems to me very possible that if your opponents ASL was anywhere from 7 or lower, they would probably lose a majority of these games.   

Regarding your sideboard, I think it is brilliant in what appears to be the new metagame.  The trouble with most Enchantment removal solutions for Leyline is the classic prior knowledge problem.  I can put 10 cards in the board to combat Leyline, but I am still not boarding them in game 2 because most decks do not run Leyline.  By the time I see Leyline game 2 I only have one chance to get lucky and beat it.  By using cards that are more generic like Chain of Vapor you can board effectively without knowing which hate it is that you are combating.  This is very useful.

I still find most of the Leylines floating around to be suboptimal in the decks they are in and I hoping it is a fad.  I mean who wastes 4 slots in their board hating out a deck that has never top 8ed.  If Leyline usage decreases then hopefully we can go back to worrying primarily about Tormod's Crypt.

I still find it contradictory that every deck in Type 1 except Manaless Ichorid now seems to want to board in Leylines while Manaless Ichorid does not.  Something has to give there.  If Leyline is good for Slaver it is good for Manaless Ichorid.

Regarding Wasteland versus Leyline.  Wasteland may very well be better.  Leyline shuts off Gifts Ungiven and Intuition fairly well, but Wasteland shuts off Gifts especially because it is tough to get the mana up.  I still have the problem of too many lands.  Two Wastelands might be about right.

Regarding 4 or 0 Leylines.  Everyone acts as though any number of Leylines that is not 4 or 0 is wrong.  This may not be true.  Remember that the second Leyline does little since the first is rarely bounced and when it is it is likely to be Echoing Truth that bounced it.  Because Leyline is redundant in multiples your 4th Leyline is much less valuable then your first.  It might be that the right number of Leylines is 3.

Now if your strategy involves mulliganing to Leylines then more is better, but Manaless Ichorid does not mulligan to Leyline so three or even two might be correct.

If Jeff Folinas point that knowledge of Caverns makes it a bad SB plan, there here is my proposed Ichorid list for dealing with this change:

Mana Ichorid Variant 1 (If Caverns Becomes Tactically Useless)
By Stephen Menendian
1/17/07

 Mana Ichorid

The Combo:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dragon Breath
2 Dread Return

Food:
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Shambling Shell

Disruption
  4 Unmask
  4 Chalice of the Void
  4 Cabal Therapy
  2 Duress
  1 Strip Mine

Mana
  3 Petrified Field
  1 Gemstone Mine
  4 City of Brass
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard
  2 Duress
  4 Leyline of the Void
  4 Chain of Vapor
  3 Ancient Grudge
  1 Gemstone Mine
  1 Petrified Field

This sideboard loses the game two power of Gemstone Caverns since it is weakened by your opponent simply saying "I'll draw."   However, it remains an open question as to whether Caverns would ever become so tactically weak.

The second option is forcing it into the sb in other ways like this:

Mana Ichorid Variant 2 - Forcing Leyline into the Board
By Stephen Menendian
1/17/07

The Combo:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dragon Breath
2 Dread Return

Food:
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Shambling Shell

Disruption
  4 Unmask
  4 Chalice of the Void
  4 Cabal Therapy
  2 Duress
  1 Strip Mine

Mana
  3 Petrified Field
  1 Gemstone Mine
  4 City of Brass
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard
  4 Gemstone Caverns
  4 Chain of Vapor
  3 Ancient Grudge
  4 Leyline of the Void

I don't feel totally comfortable with either build, but that would be one way to manage what you suggested.

One issue that I'm quite surprised no one has raised, but was raised repeatedly on my team boards was the question of Pithing Needle.

It was my view that Ancient Grudge is superior for card advantage reasons: Needle has to be in your opening hand to be good, Grudge just has to be in your deck.   But most of my teammates thought that hte biggest weakness of my deck was the lack of Needle.   In my view,the only thing that Needle really protects against is T. Crypt.  I suppose it simply reflects the universal agreement that T. Crypt can be very well mitgiated through play and through the answers we already have.   

[meadbert]

Needle is nice because of its flexibility.  Sometimes you name Aether Spellbomb or Auriok Salvagers and it really helps.  Sometimes you need it to address Thrashing Wumpus or Withered Wretch.  The problem is you need it in your opening hand.

When playing through Crypt you end up actually drawing a lot because you only want your graveyard with 3 creatures in it.  Because of that Pithing Needle does become better.  Obviously it is great versus Crypt.

Rootmaze is more powerful overall because it slows your opponent down in every way.  It simultaneously shuts of crypt, makes the Tendrils Combo more difficult and just slows down fetchlands in general.  I like that it cannot be welded out or eaten by Shaman.  The problem is that green mana is significantly hard to get.

Crypt can be played through for sure, but it is still devestating.  The goldfish becomes turn 6 or so which is much slower and gives other decks a chance to win.  Also, mana denial is much worse if the game is going to last 6 turns.

Picking an optimal sideboard without knowledge of the metagame is impossible.  I am very happy with the board I played at Roanoke and I would play a very similar board if I knew I were playing the same decks again.  It appears the meta has shifted so I am waiting on the deck lists to be posted before I try to determine how to sideboard.

Back when the ratio of Tormod's Crypt to Leylines was about 70:1 it was a no brainer to just ignore Leyline and plan for Crypt.  If it is closer to 1:1 then a new strategy may be called for.

I will have to test your board some more versus Leylines.  Also I will test Emerald Charm more extensively because that card is useful even when there is no Leyline to destroy.

Some numbers I have noted in the past are these:
Probability of winning a game versus 2 Tormod's Crypt.dec if unprepared ~= 25%
If you run 4 Needle and 4 Grudge and 4 Riftstone Portals then it is ~38%
If you run 15 anti Crypt cards then only go to about 46%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Planar Void.dec if unprepared is ~=12%
Probabily of winning a game versus 4 Planar Void.dec with 4 Ray of Revelation + 4 Riftsone Portals is ~35%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if unprepared is 16%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if you have 4 Emerald Charm + 4 Gemstone Mine is ~26%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if you have 4 Char, 4 Purification and 7 Rainbow lands is ~40%

With that in mind the reward for boarding for certain hate is such that there is a great reward for boarding in Planar Void removal.  The 4 Rifstone Portal/4 Ray of Revelation plan is really quite good when you consider your winning percentage jumps from 12% to 35%.  There is a medium reward for a Crypt defense and it gets worse.  Basically 15 cards is too many because once you have boarded in Needles and you already have Chalice your Rootmaze is sort of redundant.  There is a smaller reward for Leyline removal unless you go all in and pack your board with it.  In a meta where we have to address Leyline I suspect the optimal board would be packed with Enchantment hate and the maindeck might sport some mana or Crypt defense.

[Smmenen]

Needle is nice because of its flexibility.  Sometimes you name Aether Spellbomb or Auriok Salvagers and it really helps.  Sometimes you need it to address Thrashing Wumpus or Withered Wretch.  The problem is you need it in your opening hand.

I do not say this to be curt or combative, but Needle is not flexible in the practical sense of the word in the context of this deck and the reason for its inclusion.   It is true that Needle can be used to stop lots and lots of cards, but it can't stop permanents that don't have activated abilities.   Chain of Vapor is the quintessential flexible card in contrast. 

When playing through Crypt you end up actually drawing a lot because you only want your graveyard with 3 creatures in it.  Because of that Pithing Needle does become better.  Obviously it is great versus Crypt.

I agree - but, that's taking a narrow view.  The question, as always is - not just what does card X do in any given, likely and relevant situation, but how does that compare to what card Y could do in that same situation.   I have found that in most situations, meaning a vast majority, Chain of Vapor and Grudge do very much the same thing as Needle. 

Consider: you have lets say 18 cards in your graveyard and it is their endstep and you announce Chain of Vapor targeting Tormod's Crypt.   Knowing full well that they will get Therapied next turn, they are going to crypt you on the spot.   Likewise, if you announce PIthing Needle, while its on the stack, you're going to get Crypted.

If we just looked at the cards and thier function out of context of actual game play and realistic scenarios that we construct from relevant experience (not bombastic theory), then it becomes clear that Needle really doesn't do anything that Chain doesn't do. 

One of hte arguments I hear most frequently from people who don't really know much about Ichorid is that Needle can stop Wasteland.  I hardly need mention the fallacy in that argument to you, but it is important to recognize that we aren't all on the same page.  Many people don't have the experience we have.   

Rootmaze is more powerful overall because it slows your opponent down in every way.  It simultaneously shuts of crypt, makes the Tendrils Combo more difficult and just slows down fetchlands in general.  I like that it cannot be welded out or eaten by Shaman.  The problem is that green mana is significantly hard to get.

In my view, you're looking at it backwards again - just as Diceman and Nataz and PoliceHQ and Harlequin have been.   The question isn't: how can I become more disruptive?   That's not how we beat hate.  The question is: how can we best answer hate and win games in which: Needle, T. Crypt, Leyline, and Planar Void enter the game state?   Now, that isn't to say that being more disruptive isn't necessary the answer. 

But we can't get there unless we are asking the right questions.   I think that starting with Root Maze because "its disruptive" is askiing the wrong question.  It's unfocused.   That isn't a dig at Root Maze - quite the contrary, I'm fairly certain that I first put it in my old Ichorid list last May or so.   But we need to keep fundamentals in mind _always_.  And the fundamental here is simple:  Manaless Ichorid is Amazing game one and we just need to figure out how to seal the deal by winning the match.  I believe that my answers have done that.   

It isn't clear to me what the context is that you are bringing some of these suggestions up.  If you are raising them to inject them into the discourse and nothing more, then I applaud you and readily admit that I misapprended your intent.   I'm reading your post as a suggestion that perhaps Root Maze should be included over Grudge and you are making the case for why that is. 

Crypt can be played through for sure, but it is still devestating.  The goldfish becomes turn 6 or so which is much slower and gives other decks a chance to win.  Also, mana denial is much worse if the game is going to last 6 turns.

So you are saying that Crypt slows you down 2 turns, basically?  I would argue that it slows you down about 1.5 turns. 

Picking an optimal sideboard without knowledge of the metagame is impossible. 

I completely agree with this statement and think that an analysis of the all the options and greater knowledge sharing is one of the important functions of this thread.   

However:

I am very happy with the board I played at Roanoke and I would play a very similar board if I knew I were playing the same decks again.  It appears the meta has shifted so I am waiting on the deck lists to be posted before I try to determine how to sideboard.

I must strongly disagree with the claim that Manaless Ichorid is optimal.  In my view, manaless Ichorid is strictly inferior to mana ichorid because Manaless Ichorid has dead weight.   Adding mana, even a modest amount, *dramatically* increases your odds aginast combo as well as your chances post board.   Thus, from a strictly theroetical perspective, 4 Cities of Brass in lieu of 4 Leylines, in my view, is a direct improvement in Manaless Ichorid.   

I still agree with your statement that all of our decisions, in the end, have to be geared toward the anticipated metagame.   This is something that we should always keep in mind and in front of us as we examine our options.   

Back when the ratio of Tormod's Crypt to Leylines was about 70:1 it was a no brainer to just ignore Leyline and plan for Crypt.  If it is closer to 1:1 then a new strategy may be called for.

I think this analysis suggests that you were simply playing to fight Crypts and therefore could get away with manaless ichorid.  What that igores is that PIthing needle, along with T. Crypt, is very common and can be quite devastating.  I believe that the deck needs answers to both.  I also think you need answers to other random cards players may have such as Ensnaring Bridge or whatever it is that people will bring.   Chain of Vapor is incredible.   It's one of the best cards in Vintage and arguably the 4th best "U" casting cost spell ever printed after Ancestral, Brainstorm, and Mystical Tutor. 

I will have to test your board some more versus Leylines.  Also I will test Emerald Charm more extensively because that card is useful even when there is no Leyline to destroy.

I also have to again register my view that Emerald Charm is wrong.  If you are going to run it, I see absolutely no goodreason not to just run Chain.   The argument that they could jsut replay the card has no merit if you actually test it.  Your discard is so heavy that it just doesn't work out that Chain of Vapor isn't a permanent solution.   

Some numbers I have noted in the past are these:
Probability of winning a game versus 2 Tormod's Crypt.dec if unprepared ~= 25%
If you run 4 Needle and 4 Grudge and 4 Riftstone Portals then it is ~38%
If you run 15 anti Crypt cards then only go to about 46%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Planar Void.dec if unprepared is ~=12%
Probabily of winning a game versus 4 Planar Void.dec with 4 Ray of Revelation + 4 Riftsone Portals is ~35%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if unprepared is 16%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if you have 4 Emerald Charm + 4 Gemstone Mine is ~26%
Probability of winning a game versus 4 Leyline of the Void.dec if you have 4 Char, 4 Purification and 7 Rainbow lands is ~40%

With that in mind the reward for boarding for certain hate is such that there is a great reward for boarding in Planar Void removal.  The 4 Rifstone Portal/4 Ray of Revelation plan is really quite good when you consider your winning percentage jumps from 12% to 35%.  There is a medium reward for a Crypt defense and it gets worse.  Basically 15 cards is too many because once you have boarded in Needles and you already have Chalice your Rootmaze is sort of redundant.  There is a smaller reward for Leyline removal unless you go all in and pack your board with it.  In a meta where we have to address Leyline I suspect the optimal board would be packed with Enchantment hate and the maindeck might sport some mana or Crypt defense.

Could you explain how you got those numbers?  I'm intrigued. 

[nataz]

I'd just like to point out that grudge has been nothing but good to me. With meandeck ichorid I used to have significant trouble getting all the way against a deck that could play either an early needle or an early crypt. In fact, I initialy droped the deck entirely because of that problem after playtesting tons of games where TFK gifts would just crypt/needle me on turn two and I would have no answer. Grudge is so good though, because it gets rid of both tormods crypt AND needle, all while not needing to actualy be in play which is important.

Steve mentioned earlier that ichorid "draws" better then any other deck out there because essentialy it will always see 9-10 cards its first turn. This was one of the draw backs of leyline (and in my opinion gemstone) because it couldn't take advatage of that 10, it was stuck at 7. There is however a significant downside. While this deck commonly sees 10 cards in its opening turn, it rarely has much of a hand past turn 2, and certainly has almost no hand (save for dredgers) on turn 3. Ichoird has a use it or lose it mentality *unless* that card can be played out of the graveyard. This is why grudge is so good. out of those say 9 cards, we know that bazaar will be one of them. Now, add in pithing needle. Then add in a land to cast needle. Oft times it just wont be there. Grudge, like ashen or factory, only needs a land to be in that opening 9. After that, the deck will just provide though its normal game plan.

If it makes any sense, this is also why I think both ashen and factory are better then duress MD. Ashen and Factory are to Grudge as Duress is to Pithing Needle, but thats another debate. It's also why I may ceede the argument on Pimp (although I still <3 my jap version of him).

Interestingly enough, while I think charm is better against leyline, this waterbury taught me that perhaps chain may be needed. I flat out lost a SB'ed game to Hunted wumpas, and quite frankly that was the suck. G3 I SB'ed in my single chain of vapor in a vain hope that I could answer the black beast. As it turns out, I had a redic series of three turns and won easily after poor luck mulligans by TK, but thats besides the point. The point is, Wumpas, wtf. Charm is great if everyone sideboards leyline (well, great might not be the word, but better then chain certainly), however if people start becoming more clever then chain may be a viable answer. I know I missed chain against goblin welder when I was jar'ed to death once, and then again almost a second time. Grudge did nothing against welding a jar (well, it wasn't the strongest card although it did force the draw in final turns) but chain + discard would have made it an easy match. Chain is good against things that we don't already have an answer too, which is mostly creature based solutions. Other then creatures everything else seemingly can be hit by grudge + charm just as easily as by grudge + chain.  Am I missing anything besides answering creatures, and if I'm not, is it really the ability to hit creatures v. the ability to untap bazaar?
   

[meadbert]

Creatures can be a big deal.  Between Withered Wretch, Thrashing Wumpus and Goblin Sharpshooter there are a lot of problematic creatures.  I really like the bounce/discard strategy.  I am thinking Steve's direction is the correct one.

Could Echoing Truth work alongside Chain of Vapor?  I know it costs 2, but with sideboard slots devoted to land and if Wasteland is possibly moved to the main then the mana source count could be upped to 15 or so post board making 2 cc spells like Echoing Truth possible.

In testing Chain has been amazing because of its flexibility.  I actually want more of them which is why I am considering Echoing Truth.

An idea I was toying with was something like keeping a maindeck that is similar to what I ran in Richmond and then adding:

7 Underground Sea/River/Gemstone Caverns
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Echoing Truth
1 Ashen Ghoul

Ashen Ghoul is way to good to not run if you have the mana.  Once Extirpate or whatever that new card is hits it will be very nice to have an extra Creature you can return.

The bounce board has some huge flaws such as if an opponent drops Ensnaring Bridge you are kept scrolling to find bounce.  This would not be bad, but it is MUCH worse then simply flashing back Ancient Grudge.  To me 1 Ancient Grudge and 1 Ray of Revelation are almost automatic in the board just because of random cards they shut off.

Another option is to essentially adopt Steve's maindeck and go from there which would leave us a list very similar to what he last suggested.  I believe 1 Ray of Revelation makes a big difference.  It can be hardcast to deal with Leyline and when you dredge it before Planar Void comes down it is a godsend.  It is not uncommon for Planar Void to come down on turns 2 and 3 when you have already dredged 15 to 30 cards.  In those cases just having one Planar Void in your deck makes a big difference.  Demonic and Mystical lead to turn 3 Planar Voids and Vamp or Brainstorming into it lead to turn 2 Planar Voids.  This is very common versus SS and Urbana Fish.

My major concern with the mana version is that it is significantly slower.  I think the turn 3 goldfish dropped from something like 45% to about 17%.  This is a really big difference.  There was still a big discrepency in the turn 4 goldfish.  The problem it seemed was not having enough dredgers.  Now, when you don't start out with a dredger it sets your goldfish back a turn but it also means you have two more chances to draw potentially disrupting cards (such as Dures, Unmask and Chalice) so it sets your opponent back too.  I don't want to read too much into goldfishing but it is worth mentioning.

I am hoping that a few changes (like adding a token Ashen Ghoul) can accelerate Mana Ichorid's goldfish and in that manner establish it as the superior overall deck.

Anyway as a rule of thumb game 1 is about going more broken first.  Games 2/3 are more about having answers to things.

In a game 1 situation I like Manaless Ichorid for now because it goes more broken faster.  In games 2 and 3 mana Ichorid has better solutions. 

Regarding Gemstone Caverns:  Would an opponent really opt to go second?  I would say hurray simply because of the power of Tormod's Crypt.  Even if that were bad, then we would presumably choose to draw in game 3.  Your winning percentage in game 1 has no impact on how good Gemstone Caverns is.  This is because games 2 and 3 are weighted equally even if game 3 is not played.  You will always be on the play once in games 2/3.

You can argue that game 3 is not always played, but if we are going to win game 3 then game 2 does not matter.

Anyway the point is Caverns is something to consider.

Caverns is nice because it allows us to bounce threats right off the bat.  This is strong.

Caverns is bad because in on the play we basically can't use it and if we draw into it with Bazaar it is less useful.

Ultimately the question that we need to answer is how effective is chaining Leyline of the Void on turns 2, 3 and 4.

At some point it is just too late.  If it turns out we can regularly (>25%) win games where we chain a Leyline on turn 3 then I think City of Brass and Gemstone Mine makes more sense since we will see 6 more draws by turn 3.  If we have to bounce Leyline on turn 1 or 2 then Gemstone Caverns is more useful because it allows for that.

[Elric]

Regarding Gemstone Caverns:  Would an opponent really opt to go second?  I would say hurray simply because of the power of Tormod's Crypt.  Even if that were bad, then we would presumably choose to draw in game 3.  Your winning percentage in game 1 has no impact on how good Gemstone Caverns is.  This is because games 2 and 3 are weighted equally even if game 3 is not played.  You will always be on the play once in games 2/3.

You can argue that game 3 is not always played, but if we are going to win game 3 then game 2 does not matter.

If your opponent doesn't know that you're bringing in Gemstone Caverns and you've won game 1, then if they choose to play in game 2 and win, you can choose to draw in game 3.  If it becomes advantageous for them to draw in game 2, and they know to do so, then you can't be on the draw in both post-board games (assuming it goes to game 3).  So there is some impact here based on your opponent's knowledge.

More generally, the idea that games 2 and 3 are weighted equally regardless of the outcome in game 1 is not quite correct because your goal is to win two out of three games as high a probability as possible, not to win the highest expected number of games.  In situations when your chance to win post-sideboard games is different going first versus going second (assuming that everyone figures this out so if the match goes three games you'll draw one sideboarded game and play the other), then you care about more than just your average number of post-sideboard games won. 

As a pathological example, suppose that you win 100% of pre-sideboarded games, 100% of sideboarded games going first, and 0% of sideboarded games going second.  Then you win 100% of the matches (but only 2/3 of the games- you always win 2-1).  If you win 100% of the pre-sideboarded games, and 50% of post-sideboarded games, regardless of who goes first, then your chance to win the match is 75%.  This is an illustration of the principle that the higher the chance you have to win game 1, the better it is for you if post-sideboarded games are more dependent on who goes first (even if the overall % of postsideboard games won by each player is the same).  When your chance to win game 1 is 50%, then all that you care about is maximizing the number of post-sideboarded games that you win.  Ichorid might have favorable enough game 1 matchups that this logic actually applies in thinking about sideboarding strategies.

Note that this logic doesn't apply to game 1, all you want to maximize for game 1 is (assuming in game 1 it's always better to play and everyone knows this) Chance to win the game on the play+ Chance to win the game on the draw.  Some related calculations are here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=25791.0

[meadbert]

Game 2 and 3 are still symetrical.  If you have a 100% chance of winning games 1 and 3 then you have a 100% chance of winning the match.

I do see your point about usually only needing to win 1 out of the final 2 games so it is okay to use conditional cards like Gemstone Caverns.

[mongrel12]

A question: What is your boarding plan vs Crypt? What is your plan vs Leyline? I usually find myself hard pressed to cut key components from the deck to bring in extra mana and bounce.

[Smmenen]

I'd just like to point out that grudge has been nothing but good to me. With meandeck ichorid I used to have significant trouble getting all the way against a deck that could play either an early needle or an early crypt. In fact, I initially dropped the deck entirely because of that problem after playtesting tons of games where TFK gifts would just crypt/needle me on turn two and I would have no answer. Grudge is so good though, because it gets rid of both tormods crypt AND needle, all while not needing to actualy be in play which is important.

I don’t know if you noticed, but my very last MD Ichorid list ran 2 Chain of Vapor maindeck for that very reason.   (And also because it handled DSC so well).

Steve mentioned earlier that ichorid "draws" better then any other deck out there because essentialy it will always see 9-10 cards its first turn. This was one of the draw backs of leyline (and in my opinion gemstone) because it couldn't take advatage of that 10, it was stuck at 7. There is however a significant downside. While this deck commonly sees 10 cards in its opening turn, it rarely has much of a hand past turn 2, and certainly has almost no hand (save for dredgers) on turn 3. Ichoird has a use it or lose it mentality *unless* that card can be played out of the graveyard. This is why grudge is so good. out of those say 9 cards, we know that bazaar will be one of them. Now, add in pithing needle. Then add in a land to cast needle. Oft times it just wont be there. Grudge, like ashen or factory, only needs a land to be in that opening 9. After that, the deck will just provide though its normal game plan.

Yes, that's what I was alluding to at the conclusion of this post: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=31723.msg458028#msg458028

I have perhaps another way of thinking about it that will bring this issue into a tight focus.

There was a debate on my team boards about to what extent this deck obe's the normal rules of magic.   That is, one teammate pointed out that normal concepts such as card advantage and tempo really don't apply.    Jacob countered that they very much do apply.

I agree with Jacob, but what this deck does is burst our basic assumptions about how card advantage and tempo operates in practice.   
This is because in 99% of cases, card advantage is generally measured by cards going to your hand.  Why?

Because the rules of magic construct a game where cards are transferred from one zone (the library) through certain processes to another zone (the hand) from which they may then be transferred to another zone ("play").   

Thus, the card advantage assumption works on the notion that you have more available cards to play when you transfer more cards from the "library" zone to the "hand zone" so that they may be played in the "play zone" or the "stack" zone which often interacts and conditions which cards enter the "play" zone.

Ichorid bursts one of those key assumptions.   The vast majority of its plays come from transferring cards from the "graveyard" zone to the "play zone" and the "stack" zone.    The only exception really is cards played on the first turn from your opening hand.

Thus, in terms of card advantage, Bazaar of Baghdad doesn't read, draw 2 cards discard 3, it actually reads, draw 10 period.

You see my point despite the gross approximation.    The Bazaar dredge engine generates enormous card advantage in recurring men and flashback spells and all the cards that do similar effects ( i.e. Dragon's breath).

Hence, this brings into focus the reason Grudge is so good - it's one of thsoe cards playable from the GY zone while Needle is not.

However, I think Duress has a key saving grace.  It's overall utitlity isn't just in what it does by itself, but that it so well complements the other cards in hte deck by being black (to pitch to Unmask) and helping to make your subsequent Therapies better.   Importantly, I don't think that Mishra's Factory is different from Needle or Duress in the manner you say aside from the fact that Factory + Therapy only requires one card whereas Duress + Land requries two.  However, the fact that mitigates this point is that Therapy can be played off a land from hand, just as it can flashed back.   

If it makes any sense, this is also why I think both ashen and factory are better then duress MD. Ashen and Factory are to Grudge as Duress is to Pithing Needle, but thats another debate. It's also why I may ceede the argument on Pimp (although I still <3 my jap version of him).

But a key point is that Ashen Ghoul is useless without land except as Ichorid and S. Ghoul fodder.   That restriction dramatically limits its utility. 

Interestingly enough, while I think charm is better against leyline,

Strictly speaking, yes Charm is better against Leyline in the sense that Charm destroys it while Leyline does not.   But that margin is extremely small.    On a scale of effectiveness against Leyline if Charm is 98% good, Chain is 96.5% good.

The overall utility of Chain absolutely dwarfs Emerald. 

I am quite frankly shocked that you went into Waterbury without Chains in your SB. 

this waterbury taught me that perhaps chain may be needed. I flat out lost a SB'ed game to Hunted wumpas, and quite frankly that was the suck.

I thought we established last year that every Ichorid decklist between mainboard and sideboard should always have 4 Chain of Vapor.

Chain of Vapor is to Vintage in 2007 what Swords to Plowshares was to Vintage in 1996 – the most universally efficient way of dealing with permanents.  The fact that they can replay the card is a theoretical threat that only has merit on discussion boards and very little basis in actual reality .   

If I had gone to Waterbury I would have played the list I published and I’m very disappointed that Ichorid players like yourself opened yourself up so much by running inferior cards like Charm.   You had a real chance to do very well, but you somehow go stuck on the notion that dealing with Leyline as a permanent was more important than bouncing it because you didn’t see that 99% of the time, bouncing it is dealing with it as a permanent.

/end vent.

 G3 I SB'ed in my single chain of vapor in a vain hope that I could answer the black beast. As it turns out, I had a redic series of three turns and won easily after poor luck mulligans by TK, but thats besides the point. The point is, Wumpas, wtf. Charm is great if everyone sideboards leyline (well, great might not be the word, but better then chain certainly )

I bolded the word “certainly” there.

I couldn’t disagree more.   This is where your train runs off the tracks. 

We limit and narrow this discussion to several cards:

T. Crypt
Needle
Planar Void
Leyline

But the reality is that there are A LOT of cards that are effective against Ichorid.  Note that I say effective, not devastating.

Cards like Grunt, Ensnaring Bridge, etc.  Ben Carp rattled off a list of cards I hadn’t even thought up that would be effective and can’t recall now. 

The point and the reality is that you simply do not know what your opponent is going to throw at you and you must be prepared for something. 

TK’s Wumpuss just proves my point.   

Here’s why and the key logic:

If they do nothing you win anyway.   So there is no harm if they don’t.   If they do do something, you have to be ready to win regardless of what it is.

Your claim that is that if everyone boards leylines, Emerald Charm is certainly better than Chain is exactly the thinking that lead you lose games and not do as well as you could have at the Waterbury.   

It’s just plain wrong.   Emerald Charm was wrong a month ago, it was wrong a week ago, and it is wrong now.   It’s wrong because you are comparing it to Chain of Vapor which is the only automatic 4 of. 

, however if people start becoming more clever then chain may be a viable answer. I know I missed chain against goblin welder when I was jar'ed to death once, and then again almost a second time. Grudge did nothing against welding a jar (well, it wasn't the strongest card although it did force the draw in final turns) but chain + discard would have made it an easy match. Chain is good against things that we don't already have an answer too, which is mostly creature based solutions. Other then creatures everything else seemingly can be hit by grudge + charm just as easily as by grudge + chain.  Am I missing anything besides answering creatures, and if I'm not, is it really the ability to hit creatures v. the ability to untap bazaar?

Not only does that paragraph reinforce my general point, but you are trying to cover every base.  You can’t.  And whats more you don’t need to. 

This fear that Chain of Vapor permits people to replay their card is not rooted in reality.  I don’t know how many times I can say that before people believe it.  It’s rooted in theory.

I apologize for coming off strong here, but these points are central.   I suppose I would have to say that:

Myth number 1:  Chain of Vapor is problematic is a solution to Ichorid hate because they can just replay the spell.

That is just wrong wrong wrong.   There are many reasons why this is wrong beyond those I’ve already articulated in this thread and in this post.   


 

Game 2 and 3 are still symetrical.  If you have a 100% chance of winning games 1 and 3 then you have a 100% chance of winning the match.

I do see your point about usually only needing to win 1 out of the final 2 games so it is okay to use conditional cards like Gemstone Caverns.

But that’s really not the point.   It’s not about its conditionality so much as how a particular conditionality is negated by a particular feature of the deck.

The point is that if you have a super high game 1 win percentage, then the particular drawback that Caverns is only good on the draw isn’t a drawback because it will come into play (i.e. be useful) every match. 

The fact that you don’t understand this point explains why you said this:

Your winning percentage in game 1 has no impact on how good Gemstone Caverns is. 

This is flat out wrong.

Your winning percentage in game one is what justifies the use of Gemstone Caverns.  As I carefully explained in my article this week (which I thought you read), Gemstone Caverns has four particular drawbacks.   The drawback that requires you to be on the draw is not a problem if you have a super high win percentage.

As I said in the article, if we assume that we would be on the draw 0% of the time in a particular game, then obviously Gemstone Caverns is awful.  Conversely, if we were on the draw 100% of the time in a particular game, then that particular drawback is not at issue.  The question then becomes: what is the threshold level of times you need to be on the draw to make Caverns good?   I argue that the roughly 80% game 1 win percentage is above that threshold.   Do you see the connection now? Because it is clear from your statements that you didn’t get this before.

Creatures can be a big deal.  Between Withered Wretch, Thrashing Wumpus and Goblin Sharpshooter there are a lot of problematic creatures.  I really like the bounce/discard strategy.  I am thinking Steve's direction is the correct one.

Among other threats – it’s not just creatures, it’s the fact that Chain hits Everything except land.   In a deck that needs to maximize its ability to win every game post board, why on god’s green earth would you want to have the wrong solution to a particular threat and hope to find the right one through topdecking?    Chain of Vapor is the right solution to everything just about. 

Could Echoing Truth work alongside Chain of Vapor?  I know it costs 2, but with sideboard slots devoted to land and if Wasteland is possibly moved to the main then the mana source count could be upped to 15 or so post board making 2 cc spells like Echoing Truth possible.

It’s something to keep in mind, but I have made a formal constraint in design against anything that requires two mana.   

In testing Chain has been amazing because of its flexibility.  I actually want more of them which is why I am considering Echoing Truth.

Hallelujah.   

An idea I was toying with was something like keeping a maindeck that is similar to what I ran in Richmond and then adding:

7 Underground Sea/River/Gemstone Caverns
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Echoing Truth
1 Ashen Ghoul

That SB seems fine for Manaless Ichorid.

My major concern with the mana version is that it is significantly slower.  I think the turn 3 goldfish dropped from something like 45% to about 17%.  This is a really big difference.  There was still a big discrepency in the turn 4 goldfish.

I found that Manaless Ichorid won on about turn 3.4 and my Mana Ichorid is about a 3.75 deck.  I don’t think its quite as slow as you were making out – you have it pegged at a 3.83 clock.   

I think while there is a big difference, as long as we are within turns 3-4 we are fine.  Once we get into turn 4-5 range, then I don’t think you have a good deck.   

My deck still wins a lot of games on turn 3, even if, by your math, most are on turn 4.   

 The problem it seemed was not having enough dredgers. 

Actually, that’s not the problem and I’m actually quite surprised you would say that given that you ran exactly that number of dredgers at Roanoke.   

The problem and what I think you meant to say is that the reason why the deck is slower is that there aren’t enough “quality” dredgers.   

Running Shell over Thug makes a big difference.  But I run Shell because I don’t want a “virtual” kill advocated by Vroman and his teammates.

This problem would be solved with the following list:

Mana Ichorid Variant (Without Ghoul Combo)
By Stephen Menendian

The Combo:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
2 Dread Return
1 Sundering Titan
1 Yosei

Food:
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug

Disruption
  4 Unmask
  4 Chalice of the Void
  4 Cabal Therapy
  4 Duress
  1 Strip Mine

Mana
  3 Petrified Field
  1 Gemstone Mine
  4 City of Brass
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard
  2 Duress
  4 Gemstone Caverns
  4 Chain of Vapor
  3 Ancient Grudge
  1 Gemstone Mine
  1 Petrified Field

But the problem is that the virtual kill just gives your opponent time.. which is a precious commodity as we have already stated many times.

In a game 1 situation I like Manaless Ichorid for now because it goes more broken faster.  In games 2 and 3 mana Ichorid has better solutions. 

I agree with you, but would argue that Mana Ichorid can be built it ways that keep the speed of Manaless Ichorid.   For instance, you could just build a Manaless Ichorid list like this:

Mana(less) Ichorid Variant
By Stephen Menendian

The Combo:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dragon’s Breath
2 Dread Return

Food:
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell

Disruption
  4 Unmask
  4 Chalice of the Void
  4 Cabal Therapy
  1 Strip Mine

Mana
  4 Petrified Field
  2 City of Brass
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Lotus Petal

All I did with this list was take Manaless Ichorid and go:

-   1 Maze (or whatever the random 1-of was)
-   4 Leylines or whatever you ran in this slot
+    5 Mana sources

As I explained in my article, I content that even this configuration is just superior to Manaless Ichorid because you have the content to fight post board games with mana without having to cram all your mana into your sb AND you can hard cast Therapies, which gives you more interactive power than Leyline or Wasteland would.

Thus, in this way I have demonstrated that mana ichorid list CAN be built in a way that do not slow down the deck at all.   This deck has zero speed differences from pure manaless ichorid.

My mana ichorid list is just a few cards off from this.

I cut the 4 Thug and 1 Field for 2 duress and 3 more land. 

It’s that which provides the speed difference.

[nataz]

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, or earlier examples muddled my point, but that Leyline/whatever can be replayed after a chain is not what I am getting at. You mention that if no leyline shows up, neither card does anything, so its a moot point. My point is that if no leyline shows up, instead of drawing 10, you draw 20. The fact that this is done on turn two more often then not does limit it's effectiveness (as opposed to say turn 1 where you could get more dredgers into play), but I still think the untap is a significant benifit. I understand there can be a cost/benifit to not runing chain (which I love btw) I just hate SB in "dead" cards, which is what chain is if there is no target and you guessed wrong on leyline. 

Finally, actualy at Myriad, I did have a situation where charm was better then chain. I SB in charm, and my opponent didn't hit his leyline off the mull. I bazaar turn 1, bazaar AND charm turn 2, and stole a win on turn 3 because the extra cards in my gy allowed for 3 cabal therp PLUS 3 creatures to bring back to a hasty ghoul. The 3x therp was needed because they had 2 types of counters AND bounce, along with a solid chance of wining on their turn 3. It doesn't happen often, but it has happend.

Btw, I did notice your last version of ichorid with chains. In fact, you probably don't remember, but I played against you pre-SCG on MWS using chain in the ichorid list that I was working on at the time. I also ran duress, which you summarily dimissed as *terrible* shortly before quiting the game =p. Not brining this up to be a dick, just pointing out that there is some irony to this discussion.

Also, I'm still confused on your resp to ashen ghoul. I'm comparing ashen against duress, not against grudge. Grudge was brought up to illistrait the point of needing more cards in hand to accomplish similar goals. Example, grude v. pithing needle in handling crypt and Ashen v. Duress in getting a turn 2 disruption. Both accomplish similar goals, while *not* needing to be in hand. You also mention duress is black...as is ashen. And while duress does make cabal therp better (which is a big consideration), ashen with it's 3 power may let you run thugs in the MD again over shell (not something to scoff at). The largest drawback with the ashen/factory slot is that it steals a therp from turn 3. That being said, its not uncommon to has uncastable therpies on turn 3 with a) needed three creatures for return, and b) you dump a lot of therpies in your yard anyways.

You may also remember that it was me pushing for duress in the SB/MD in the manaless ichorid thread on SCG after you reported having problems with pitchlong. I of course blatently stole that idea (along with charm) from coooookie monster which I saw in play one myriad.     

[Wikoogle]

There is a key piece of tech you guys are missing out on...

Phantasmagorian, 5BB
Creature - Horror (Uncommon)

When you play Phantasmagorian, any player may discard three cards. If a player does, counter Phantasmagorian.
Discard three cards: Return Phantasmagorian from your graveyard to your hand.
6/6

It fills the same role as Gigapede of letting you get Dredgers into your yard even if Bazaar gets nixed, also feeds Sutured Ghoul, plus it's black so it can feed Unmask or Ichorid too.

Which slots do you suggest cutting to make room for this card Stephen?

As for Black Lotus, Mox Jet, Lotus Petal in Manaless Ichorid, it doesnt make sense to me...

Yes, Black Lotus can be powerful when it's in your opening hand.

But, it will be in your opening hand 11% of games. But what about the other 89% of games where instead of Dredging a black creature to feed Ichorid to into your graveyard, you'll be Dredging a Black Lotus with is basically a worthless slot.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend testing Lotus in your opening hand as you stated. And when you do, please keep a record of the percentage of the games when Lotus in your opening hand proves to be very beneficial. If that percentage is under 50%, I would lean towards not playing Lotus, because that 5% of games where you have both Lotus and the ability to do something powerful without doesn't make up for the 60-95% of games where you will dredge Lotus into the yard where it does nothing rather than being a good black creature and feeding Sutured Ghoul or Ichorid or something.

It would be handy to list what broken plays Black Lotus enables...

Lotus, Cabal Therapy, Hardcast Golgori Thug, Sac Thug to Therapy, Bazaar, Dredge on the first turn!

Yes that is insanely broken, but it requires a lot of other cards to do (4, one of which is restricted), which means it will only happen a very small percentage of games. I would venture less than 1% of games if that.

Other than the above very unlikely play, what scenarios can you think of where Black Lotus is worth running?


As for Mox Jet, that makes zero sense in this deck. Manaless Ichorid ONLY needs to stop Leyline/Planar Void. It can play through pretty much anything else.

You can't stop those cards with Duress, you NEED to use Emerald Charm/Chain of Vapor. Black mana is useless for stopping the cards that this deck needs to stop. And thus, so is Mox Jet.

Duress is really subpar in this deck, as Meadbert stated well....

I have tested Duress versus Leyline of the Void and I continue to find Leyline of the Void to be better. Basically, my goal is to keep Long from winning on turn 2. On turn 3 I can either win or use Therapies to disrupt Long till turn 4. The big question is do I survive Long's powerful turn 2. Leyline always comes down in time for turn 2. Duress does not. If I am on the draw then I either have to forgo playing Bazaar so I can play a manaland to get Duress mana up or I have to wait till turn 2 to Duress Long. A turn 2 Duress is too late. Also, once mana is added to the deck Duress competes with Cabal Therapy to a certain extent.

Thus, I propose, subbing out Mox Jet for City of Brass in the deck. That way you can easily transform in more mana to ensure you can fight off Leyline.

And I propose running a sideboard to the tune of...

3 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine/Caverns
4 Emerald Charm
4 Chain of Vapor

I look forward to another well thought out reply Stephen.

[Elric]

Game 2 and 3 are still symetrical.  If you have a 100% chance of winning games 1 and 3 then you have a 100% chance of winning the match.

I do see your point about usually only needing to win 1 out of the final 2 games so it is okay to use conditional cards like Gemstone Caverns.

But that’s really not the point.   It’s not about its conditionality so much as how a particular conditionality is negated by a particular feature of the deck.

The point is that if you have a super high game 1 win percentage, then the particular drawback that Caverns is only good on the draw isn’t a drawback because it will come into play (i.e. be useful) every match. 

The fact that you don’t understand this point explains why you said this:

Your winning percentage in game 1 has no impact on how good Gemstone Caverns is. 

This is flat out wrong.

Your winning percentage in game one is what justifies the use of Gemstone Caverns.  As I carefully explained in my article this week (which I thought you read), Gemstone Caverns has four particular drawbacks.   The drawback that requires you to be on the draw is not a problem if you have a super high win percentage.

As I said in the article, if we assume that we would be on the draw 0% of the time in a particular game, then obviously Gemstone Caverns is awful.  Conversely, if we were on the draw 100% of the time in a particular game, then that particular drawback is not at issue.  The question then becomes: what is the threshold level of times you need to be on the draw to make Caverns good?   I argue that the roughly 80% game 1 win percentage is above that threshold.   Do you see the connection now? Because it is clear from your statements that you didn’t get this before.

This argument isn't correct in general.  The short version, by way of an example:

Suppose that you win 100% of your game 1s and in a deck with Caverns you win 50% of game 2s (your opponent always chooses to go first in game 2) and you win 60% of your game 3s (if it gets there). 

Now, if you build your deck without Caverns you have a 40% chance to win game 2s and a 70% chance to win game 3s. 

In the first example you play an average of 1.5 total games post-sideboard, and an average of 1 of the post-sideboard games will be on the draw.  So 2/3 of your post-sideboard games in actual matches will be on the draw.

In the second example you play an average of 1.6 games post-sideboard, and an average of 1 of the post-sideboard games will be on the draw.  So 5/8 (about 60%) of your post-sideboard games in actual matches will be on the draw.  I've chosen these examples so your chance to win a post-sideboard game where you have a 50% chance of being on the play (and 50% chance of being on the draw) is the same, regardless of which version of the deck you have.

Given that in both cases you play the clear majority of your sideboarded games on the draw, and Gemstone Caverns makes your deck do comparatively better in post-board games when you're on the draw, this means you definitely prefer the Caverns version to the other one, right?  Wrong!  You have to look at your overall chance to win the match- the metric that you're thinking about if you answered "right" is the percentage of games that you will win in actual match play- that's not your goal!  It's pretty easy to see that in this example your chance to win the match is 1- (your chance to lose both sideboarded games), since you always win the first game. 

Your chance to lose both sideboarded games in the Caverns deck is 0.5 * 0.4= 20%.  So your chance to win each match with the Caverns deck is 80%.
Your chance to lose both sideboarded games in the non-Caverns deck is 0.6 * 0.3 = 18%.  So your chance to win each match with the non-Caverns deck is 82%.  The non-Caverns deck wins a higher percentage of its matches.

However, if you go to a tournament, you can expect to come home having won 72% of your games with the Caverns deck, and only 70% of your games with the non-Caverns deck (because you stop after 2 games if you've won both of them), even though the above calculation shows that the non-Caverns deck is actually the better deck!
 

[Wikoogle]

Say just for the sake of the argument that Meadbert is correct in his assessment that Leyline is superior to Duress in all your problem matchups and that Duress is just not worth running, and you don't want to play more than 1 Ashen Ghoul. Is Black Lotus still worth it then. Is the difference so marginal then that it no longer matter?

Yes, Black Lotus can be powerful when it's in your opening hand.

But, it will be in your opening hand 11% of games. But what about the other 89% of games where instead of Dredging a black creature to feed Ichorid to into your graveyard, you'll be Dredging a Black Lotus with is basically a worthless slot.

What percentage of the games when Lotus in your opening hand prove to be very beneficial? If that percentage is under 50%, I would lean towards not playing Lotus, because that 5% of games where you have both Lotus and the ability to do something powerful without doesn't make up for the 60-95% of games where you will dredge Lotus into the yard where it does nothing rather than being a good black creature and feeding Sutured Ghoul or Ichorid or something.

It would be handy to list what broken plays Black Lotus enables...

Lotus, Cabal Therapy, Hardcast Golgori Thug, Sac Thug to Therapy, Bazaar, Dredge on the first turn!

Yes that is insanely broken, but it requires a lot of other cards to do (4, one of which is restricted), which means it will only happen a very small percentage of games. I would venture less than 1% of games if that.

Other than the above very unlikely play, what scenarios can you think of where Black Lotus is worth running?

If meadbert assertion that Duress isn't worth it is correct, I really can't think of any other than that one scenario where I would prefer Black Lotus over another dreadger or something.

[meadbert]

I stand by my original comments regarding how Gemstone Cavern's power is unrelated to your first turn win percentage.

[nataz]

Phantasmagorian, 5BB
Creature - Horror (Uncommon)

When you play Phantasmagorian, any player may discard three cards. If a player does, counter Phantasmagorian.
Discard three cards: Return Phantasmagorian from your graveyard to your hand.
6/6

The problem is, in a version with mana, what do you cut/what problem does this solve? Sure, this is a great replacement for gigapede, but not many lists were running the pede to begin with. At first glance, the slots that I see this replacing would be the Shambling Shell/Thug slot, but this isnt' a functional replacement of dredge; you still need to have a dredge card in hand for this to be useful.

[Wikoogle]

I was mainly talking about a Manaless build with just a bit of mana and more in the sideboard to bring in versus Leyline. Basically what this thread is about.

Besides what different does it make whether it's mana or manaless. Neither deck is better equipped to recover from a wasted Bazaar than the other. I like the card just because it serves many different roles, and at worst can be pitched to Unmask or feed Ichorid.

But I see from the lack of response that no one else here seems to like the card.

What about the rest of my post?

Are my statements about Lotus inaccurate? Why?

[Tobi]

About Phantasmagorian
The problem I see is that you need to discard 3 cards for it. In very tight situations at the beginning of the game this may lead to problems, where you will need to pass one turn to draw another card to be able to use the ability.
It being a black creature and 6/6 is quite good, though.

About Black Lotus
It is just enables some very broken turn 1 plays that can win you the game. Oftentimes it will be sacced for 3 and you burn for 2, sometimes it will do nothing, but that doesn't matter compared to the games where it just wins you the game. Hardcasting Cabal Therapy first turn is very strong, and Nether Shadows also cost 2, so you can do the same with them as with Thug (besides dredging).

[Elric]

I stand by my original comments regarding how Gemstone Cavern's power is unrelated to your first turn win percentage.

I want to apologize if my first post came off wrong.  Since I hadn't read the article (I don't have Premium) I think I misread the post of yours that I was responding to and didn't figure out what point you were trying to make.  As you can see by my previous post, I fully agree that there's no validity to the logic that "I'm going to play more games in actual play on the draw than on the play so this means that Caverns is better than it would be otherwise."  Not to pick too much of a fight here, but Smmenen, I'd really like to see your response to my previous post...

[meadbert]

Steve has a point sort of.  Basically if you always win game 1 then you only need to win 1 of the next two games.  For instance if you know you can win game 1 then you would much rather have a 100% chance of winning game 2 and a 0% chance of winning game 3 than having games 2 and 3 each be 50/50.

From that perspective Steve has a great point.  The flaw as I see it is that game 3 (when we are on the play again) we will have a much better chance to win than game 2 when we are presumably on the draw and do not know which hate to expect.  Given that Ichorid leans so heavily on Chalice of the Void in games 2 and 3 playing or drawing makes a big difference.  I would find a card that only gives you an advantage on the play to be more interesting.

I would rather try to hammer down an advantage in game 3 than shore up an already bad matchup in game 2.