[Premium Article] The Ichorid Blitz

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14085.html

blurb:

When trawling through the new cards from Future Sight, it’s easy to spot those with serious Vintage potential. Street Wraith, for example, screams broken with every fiber of its being. However, Stephen believes that the true Vintage power cards from Future Sight are the ones for Manaless Ichorid. In fact, he believes his new listing is automatically a Tier 1 Vintage deck, if not the strongest deck in the format! Intrigued? Then read on...

I have just revealed what I think to be the best Ichorid list in Vintage:

Manaless Ichorid,
By Stephen Menendian
The Combo
4 Serum Powder
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

Men:
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Nether Shadow

Speed:
4 Urza’s Bauble
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Street Wraith

Disruption:
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chalice of the Void

Dredge:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Shambling Shell

The Kill
2 Dragon’s Breath
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dread Return

Full explanation in the article.

Stephen

[WilD]

SNIP
4 Serum Powder
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Nether Shadow
4 Urza’s Bauble
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Shambling Shell
2 Dragon’s Breath
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dread Return
<SNIP>

Another reason for my to get off my ass and get SCG Premium. I'm sure you address this in your article, but why did you not go for the more comboesque versions floating around in the forums which had the dude who gave your guys +1+1 and haste? They had a pretty consistent turn 2 win with disruption.

[bleakill]

I, too, would like to hear the logic behind the ghoul kill instead of the flame-kin zealot. For once, flame-kin requires 2 slots less maindeck. Another reason I think he is better is that multiple zombies are harder to deal with, think EtW vs. DSC. For example, CoV is no longer a threat to the win condition, among other things. Also, what is the reason for the lack of petrified fields/what's the plan against wasteland in general? How do you find nether shadows with the deck being faster and all? Are they really required with 4 bridges?

[Titanium Dragon]

Losing two slots and occaisionally not being able to win that turn due to the lack of one of the pieces is annoying to run the ghoul kill, but flame-kin zealot just isn't as fast. There's a lot of situations where you combo out on turn 2, and it is more difficult to do that with zealot than with Sutured Ghoul. Additionally, if you combo out, you've won; you've got enough discard to strip their hand and swing in with a giant ghoul. They're going to lose, DSC or no DSC. Nothing they have is going to matter, so it doesn't matter if you have 8 3/3 zombies and that zealot or a gigantic ghoul; they're going to lose either way. In my testing with the zealot, the deck had a VERY high turn 3 kill ratio. The problem was most of this gain came from a decrease in the turn 2 kill frequency, and I didn't see a very significant increase in slower kills. Then again, I ran a bit slower build than smennen's with more disruption; I much prefer disruption over super fast kills.

What does matter is them stopping you from going off in the first place. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised at the cutting of Unmask; I think its one of the things which makes it a lot more resilient, and removing it is really just trying to win via speed over disruption. People will be running more Tormod's Crypts, Yixilid Jailers, and Pithing Needles as Ichorid gets a lot better. I think its dangerous to expect speed to triumph over hosing. In particular, you can't rely on turn 1 therapy/chalice as your only defense I think; upping the rate of disruption via Unmask is useful and turn 1 Unmask has earned me a lot of games in testing.

That being said, I do agree with the cutting of field; while it does add some resiliency, honestly I think additional dredgers/speed is worth the slots as outside of strip effects, its not likely to matter and the speed is nice.

Fundamentally, I think there are six cards worth worrying about that are played; Leyline of the Void (you can't stop it), Strip Mine/Wasteland (they don't stop you, but they certainly slow you down), Yixilid Jailer (discard), and Tormod's Crypt (discard on the play and chalice). Planar Void is pretty much inferior to Leyline of the Void (it doesn't come down when it is important on the draw) and Jotun Grunt is only really meaningful if they've managed to get rid of your Bazaar somehow. Also, any card that makes your creatures come into play tapped slows you down by a turn, and this can be dangerous against decks like stax but without additional disruption is ultimately pointless.

In testing, 5 color stax was actually quite annoying, simply because it can run so much hate maindeck; when a welder and a crypt are both out on the table, its over and there's nothing you can do about it. Needle makes the situation even less tenable. I think the ability to proactively react with Unmask is vital, especially as unless you know what they're playing a therapy on the play is unlikely to hit.

EDIT: I’m simply not finding the list with 4 Baubles and 1x LED to be all that much faster than a list running only 1 bauble and 4 Unmask. +3 bauble +1 LED seems to increase the turn 2 and 3 kills by perhaps 5% each, while lowering the turn 4 kills by about 10%. I think the fundamental question is whether a minor increase in speed (on the order of 1 in 10 games) is worth more than turn 1 disruption (and better disruption) considerably more often.

[Smmenen]

The arguments for and against Unmask are both strong.   I think the cutting of Unmask was motivated, as a I described in the article, not by a single factor, but a confluence of forces: the speed of the deck, the speed of Therapy (from turn 3 to turn 1 possible/consistent turn two), not wanting to pitch a black spell, etc, etc.   The problem I have with arguments for Unmask as a solution to Stax (which should be exceedingly easy in game one) is that Stax can always just drop turn one 2Sphere.  Your game plan should be to get as many bridge tokens into play as early as possible.  That plan beats Welder + T. Crypt.   If you can get turn two Narcomoeba/Ichorid and 2+ Bridge tokens you will have about 6 2/2s in play on turn three.   By the time Welder + Crypt is active, it will be far too late.   

[Neonico]

The list, as far as my goldfish results show is really strong but there are still 2 problems id like to adress :
 - Chalice of the void : Still needed ? as stated, the deck is so fast that welder + crypt seems to slow enough not to be the main problem of the deck, i would replace chalice by leyline, leyline assuring a non recursion of the crypt, and one crypt activation isnt a strong answer to the deck so i think that Leyline is the best choice, simply to fight the mirror and its strong against Gifts and slaver too.
 - Smennen stated that wasteland isnt a problem for the deck. its in fact real and false, even with Bauble/LED techs, i still think that waste on bazaar slow your gameplan too much and i think that wasteland is the only problem to be adressed for this deck. Im not sold on no waste answers, at least in the sideboard.
Id like a little more informations from Smennen about those 2 points, and if he planned to test this against UBW and UW fish.

Last thing: great deck and good article as allways. I was happy to read the developpements you made for this deck.

[Smmenen]

The list, as far as my goldfish results show is really strong but there are still 2 problems id like to adress :
 - Chalice of the void : Still needed ? as stated, the deck is so fast that welder + crypt seems to slow enough not to be the main problem of the deck, i would replace chalice by leyline, leyline assuring a non recursion of the crypt, and one crypt activation isnt a strong answer to the deck so i think that Leyline is the best choice, simply to fight the mirror and its strong against Gifts and slaver too.

Chalice of the Void is the best tempo play in Vintage.  It has less to do with answering threats than it does with generally slowing your opponent down.  Even on the draw, Chalice is a huge bomb.   Gifts/Long deck desperately dig for acceleration to advance their game plan.  Slowing those decks down for even a turn is enough to seal victorsy.

Chalice is a format breaker. Any particularized arguments for or against tend to lose sight of this general fact.  It's one of those areas where substituting theory for practice is a huge mistake. 

-   Smennen stated that wasteland isnt a problem for the deck. its in fact real and false, even with Bauble/LED techs, i still think that waste on bazaar slow your gameplan too much and i think that wasteland is the only problem to be adressed for this deck. Im not sold on no waste answers, at least in the sideboard.

The question is what exactly is meant by “too” much.   It is true that your goldfish, normally a 2.5, is stalled to turn 4 or even 5 if you get Wastelanded.  I don’t consider that overly problematic.   I expect both Fish and Stax to Wasteland my Bazaar and I also expect to win the game in the next 3-4 turns in spite of it. 

Id like a little more informations from Smennen about those 2 points, and if he planned to test this against UBW and UW fish.

A great deal of my testing has actually been against UB Fish.    Nat Moes and I tested a run of games.   In most of the games, he Wastelanded, Stifled, and Extirpated me.   Note that there were even games where he Stifled my first turn Bazaar activation, Wasteded it, and I still won.   

In later games, as I tuned towards this list, he would Extirpate me 2-3 times and I’d still win (not to mention he’d Wasteland me).    Bridge + Moeba is too much for him (among other threats).   No

Last thing: great deck and good article as allways. I was happy to read the developpements you made for this deck.

Thank you.

As a general note, I said this already on the SCG forums, but I think you can keep a hand without Bazaar if it has LED and two Street Wraiths and or Baubles.   

@ everyone else, those questions were answered in the article.

[nataz]

EDIT: I’m simply not finding the list with 4 Baubles and 1x LED to be all that much faster than a list running only 1 bauble and 4 Unmask. +3 bauble +1 LED seems to increase the turn 2 and 3 kills by perhaps 5% each, while lowering the turn 4 kills by about 10%. I think the fundamental question is whether a minor increase in speed (on the order of 1 in 10 games) is worth more than turn 1 disruption (and better disruption) considerably more often.

I think a lot of people are missing this fact, and just kind of taking the article on face value. Question for Steve, did you even really test a non-bauble version? I can understand if not - considering the cards havn't been confirmed for all that long, but still, I think you are far over estimating the effect of bauble in the deck v. getting better disruption into the deck.

Oh, and I think flame-kin is worse then the standard ghoul kill. It either takes multiple Dread Returns (on flame kin and then on troll) -or- you have to have 3 creatures for the initial dread return, and then 6(!) more tokens left to attack with. Even with Bridge and Meoba, that can be just as difficult as getting a ghoul + breath.

[Smmenen]

EDIT: I’m simply not finding the list with 4 Baubles and 1x LED to be all that much faster than a list running only 1 bauble and 4 Unmask. +3 bauble +1 LED seems to increase the turn 2 and 3 kills by perhaps 5% each, while lowering the turn 4 kills by about 10%. I think the fundamental question is whether a minor increase in speed (on the order of 1 in 10 games) is worth more than turn 1 disruption (and better disruption) considerably more often.

I think a lot of people are missing this fact, and just kind of taking the article on face value. Question for Steve, did you even really test a non-bauble version? I can understand if not - considering the cards havn't been confirmed for all that long, but still, I think you are far over estimating the effect of bauble in the deck v. getting better disruption into the deck.

Oh, and I think flame-kin is worse then the standard ghoul kill. It either takes multiple Dread Returns (on flame kin and then on troll) -or- you have to have 3 creatures for the initial dread return, and then 6(!) more tokens left to attack with. Even with Bridge and Meoba, that can be just as difficult as getting a ghoul + breath.

My initial testing started as follows:

My old list + 4 Narcos and + 4 Street Wraith, - 4 Mishra's Factory, -1 Petrified Field, - 1 Shadow, - 3rd Shell, - 1 Sundering Titan.

After that, I decided I wanted Bridge and made room for four bridges.   Then I kept incrementally adding cards.  Then I tried Becker's list.  Eventually the two lists converged to what I presented.   

[nataz]

fair nuff.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if the Shadows are worth it. You can get a pretty consistant turn 3 with out them, you have plenty of black cards/creatures/power with Wraith in the picture, so really they are there for to help along the turn 2 win. I'm not sure how often you can maximize that with only 2 copies considering you need a Shadow + an enabler (like LED or Wraith) + get at least a decent dredge to bring it back. Seems like a 4-of or non-of kind of card.

One of the biggest advantages I find with shadow though is beating extirpate even more soundly game 1. It's also nice to have in the face of a crypt going off at a particularly bad time.

[Smmenen]

fair nuff.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if the Shadows are worth it. You can get a pretty consistant turn 3 with out them, you have plenty of black cards/creatures/power with Wraith in the picture, so really they are there for to help along the turn 2 win. I'm not sure how often you can maximize that with only 2 copies considering you need a Shadow + an enabler (like LED or Wraith) + get at least a decent dredge to bring it back. Seems like a 4-of or non-of kind of card.

One of the biggest advantages I find with shadow though is beating extirpate even more soundly game 1. It's also nice to have in the face of a crypt going off at a particularly bad time.

That's exactly the conclusion I came to.   My first instinct after realizing how insane Moeba+ Bridge was - was to cut Shadow.   I think that at least 2 shadows are wanted, but I settled on three.   

[dicemanx]

I like your list Steve - specifically, the retention of some number of Nether Shadows (which I feel are necessary), and retaining the Ghoul kill instead of trying to get fancy with Flame Kins or Cephalid Sages, which end up costing slots and whose benefits are unclear (it doesn't combo that much faster, nor is it particularly more consistent - it just seems to deal better with certain circumstances, worse in other circumstances). I also agree with LED inclusion, but I'm a little iffy on the Baubles:

1. You express indifference between Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble - however, isn't Urza's Bauble superior, on account of Therapy? You do (correctly) include all 4 Urza's Bauble in your list.

2. Like the posters before me, I too am finding it hard to rationalize Bauble inclusion over Unmask. The difference is likely trivial when the deck is functioning properly (comboing by turn 3) with Bauble adding to a slight increase in early combo potential and acceleration of the dredging in the face of Wasteland. However, in those instances where things do go wrong and you cannot combo off so early, Unmask might make all the difference.

You also claim that this deck will be instantly top tier, but what is likely to hold it back is the fact that it just gets rolled hardcore by Leyline; even with a SB devoted to stopping Leyline (which I imagine is going to consist of 4 CoV/ 4 Charm and 7 5C lands), I don't like the chances in a match. I'm also sure that if Ichorid rises in popularity so will the frequency of Pithing Needles in SBs, and maybe even main decks, a card I fear more on the draw than Wasteland or Crypt. I also wonder what weapons Stax might be contemplating - for instance, the combination Sphere of Resistance/Trinisphere and Tabernacle will be pretty devestating, not to mention simpler tools like Ensnaring Bridge, and Tabernacle could double as a way of limiting the number of Goblin tokens post EtW so that it's inclusion in SBs maintains some flexibility. The odds will still be on Ichorid's side no matter what hate is brought in against it, but even with 70% win ratios against the field (a ridiculously high number for a vintage deck) the deck will still struggle to make t8 or win if it has almost no chance the other 30% of the time.

[sean1i0]

Very nice article, Steve.  I've done fair amount of goldfishes after reading it and have found that the games that you don't actually combo out on turn 2, you can normally cast  1-2 cabal therapy on turn 2 and completely wreck their hand.  So far this is a really exciting new improvement to me.

[BreathWeapon]

On another note, 8 Blood Mon.dec just owns this if it wins the coin flip.

I'm not certain I agree with cutting Unmask and Leyline of the Void, because you can always rely on your speed, and you are conceding the mirror.

[Smmenen]

@ Peter: those are real concerns.  How many of them are theoretical or actual will depend upon the decisions that actual tournament players make.   Since tournament players, particularly Vintage players, tend to be relatively conservative in design and sbing choices, I think that Ichorid has a real chance to rise to the top for a time.   Most Vintage players tend not to actually prepare for the worst, but adapt only after they have, in fact, suffered the loss that we are theorizing about.   Since most Stax and other player haven't faced this as of yet, my guess is that the actual tournament resistance will prove quite soft.   Even after several months of Ichorid dominance, I suspect most players still won't have faced it sufficient to motivate them to throw 4 Leyline in their boards.     

@ Breathweapon: I'm not sure I actually believe that.

On the draw you can discard a card on your discard step and begin dredging on turn two.  You can cycle Street Wraiths and use baubles.  It's really no different than having your Bazaar Stifled on turn one and then Wasted and win or facing turn one P. Needle on the draw and win, which I've done many times. 

[policehq]

Mishra's Baubles are stronger than Urza's Baubles in subtle ways.

You learn what the opponent is hiding with Brainstorm.
You learn what the opponent has selected with Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal.

These cards are usually more important to know than a random card in your opponent's hand, especially when you are playing a deck known for Unmasks and Cabal Therapies.

-hq

[Sam101]

I am not a premium member, but I did look at the deck list and it is fairly similar to my own.  My one question is, how does LED work in this deck?  Do you just discard your hand and burn three?  Doesn't that seem relatively week to you?  Isn't Phantasmagorian a better choice?  Also, Smmenen you posted:

"As a general note, I said this already on the SCG forums, but I think you can keep a hand without Bazaar if it has LED and two Street Wraiths and or Baubles."

How do the Wraiths synergize with LED?

[Disburden]

Here is an example that Steve made on using LED during testing:

"Here was a game I played with LED:

T1:
Bazaar
Led.
Mishra's Bauble
Chalice (got Forced)

Cycle Street Wraith, response break LED, response use Bazaar:

I discarded a bridge and dredged into a bridge and a narco moeba and 3 Cabal Therapies. I then Therapied my opponent three times on turn one."

Burning for three off LED is rather irrelevent since you're probably going to win soon anyway. Losing three life makes you yawn when you play this deck.

[Smmenen]

As my teammate Hi-Val put it, LED reads:

Pay 3 life: discard your hand.   

[Necrologia]

If through some future change mana Ichorid ever becomes playable, I'd love to see One with Nothing become a Type 1 viable card.

Anyway, nice list. I think with no Unmasks, Urza's Bauble becomes stronger to help make Therapy hit. Mishra's ability to see Brainstormed/Vamped for cards seems weak, since can't do anything about them. Most hate for Ichorid costs 1-2 mana so if it's on top of the library now, odds are good that it'll hit play next turn, giving you no shot to hit it with discard.

Echoing other posters, I'm still a fan of Unmask. Probably over some number of Baubles or Shadows, as those seem to be the weakest cards to me.

Also, I'm curious as to what you think a standard SB should be for this deck. There are many possible configurations for a mana base (Riftstone/Gemstone Cavern/various duals) and lots of solid answers, such as Chain, Emerald Charm, and Ancient Grudge. Heck, Leyline of the Void might be viable for use in the mirror match. Any thoughts?

[Titanium Dragon]

In general, I’ve found that of the disruption, only Yixilid Jailer, Planar Void, and Leyline of the Void are “fatal” – that is to say, if they come down before you’ve set up a winning board position, you lose.

Pithing Needle/Strip Effects/Tormod’s Crypt all require your opponent to have two – that is to say, they need to either have two crypts, or a crypt plus a needle or strip. A crypt without a bazaar is going to slow you down massively, and generally means you lose because you don’t have time to rebuild your graveyard. Just one won’t kill you, but one will generally slow you down by a turn, though if they pith you on the play they may well slow you down by several turns as now you have to dredge the old fashioned way.

Meddling Mage and Jotun Grunt are annoying, but they aren’t all that bad unless you’ve been disrupted in other ways. Jotun Grunt –can- be bad if they’ve managed to deal with your bazaar, as then it may well be big enough to shut you down and get vital cards out of your graveyard faster than you can put them in. Meddling Mage, though, is only bad news if they’ve managed to get rid of your bazaar and stymied your offensive in some way.

And I think Extirpate is just useless in general; the card is always there, but its always just not that good. I’ve not really found any good use for it. Its not good against Ichorid, that’s for sure; you only need one of your from the graveyard creatures to win.

If you can get turn two Narcomoeba/Ichorid and 2+ Bridge tokens you will have about 6 2/2s in play on turn three.   By the time Welder + Crypt is active, it will be far too late.   

The problem is that if your opponent does have turn 1 crypt, you’re not going to have that winning board position by the time he starts doing welder tricks very often. All he really needs to do is slow you down for a turn, and that’s enough time for welder and/or other things to come in and start messing with you to slow you down.

I’d rather be able to proactively get rid of the welder on the play than have to rely on just Chalice and lucky Therapy.

Also, if they don’t know what you’re playing, they may play out another lock piece if they’re on the play, and that, while potentially annoying, is actually good for you if you have unmask as that gives you another chance to nail welder from their hand.

  - Chalice of the void : Still needed ? as stated, the deck is so fast that welder + crypt seems to slow enough not to be the main problem of the deck, i would replace chalice by leyline, leyline assuring a non recursion of the crypt, and one crypt activation isnt a strong answer to the deck so i think that Leyline is the best choice, simply to fight the mirror and its strong against Gifts and slaver too.

The problem is that chalice does slow down a lot of the problems; chalice for 0, for instance, stops a turn 1 Yixilid Jailer and a lot of combo shenanigans.

  - Smennen stated that wasteland isnt a problem for the deck. its in fact real and false, even with Bauble/LED techs, i still think that waste on bazaar slow your gameplan too much and i think that wasteland is the only problem to be adressed for this deck. Im not sold on no waste answers, at least in the sideboard.

Wasteland slows you down by a turn, but it doesn’t cost you the game unless it is followed up by crypt or similar graveyard hate.

A great deal of my testing has actually been against UB Fish.    Nat Moes and I tested a run of games.   In most of the games, he Wastelanded, Stifled, and Extirpated me.   Note that there were even games where he Stifled my first turn Bazaar activation, Wasteded it, and I still won.   

I think the first problem there is that he’s running jank like Extirpate; Yixilid Jailer, Tormod’s Crypt, and Leyline of the Void are much more effective hate. There’s just no reason to ever run Extirpate.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if the Shadows are worth it. You can get a pretty consistant turn 3 with out them, you have plenty of black cards/creatures/power with Wraith in the picture, so really they are there for to help along the turn 2 win. I'm not sure how often you can maximize that with only 2 copies considering you need a Shadow + an enabler (like LED or Wraith) + get at least a decent dredge to bring it back. Seems like a 4-of or non-of kind of card.

I don’t think the shadows are vital, but they speed you up; turn 2 wins are devastating, and turn 2 shadow is yet another excellent thing to have. In general, a turn 2 creature is good news for you and bad news for them. He is running three shadows, as am I, and I think that’s the right number, though if you really had a brilliant idea for an extra slot, I think you could cut one. There’s not really anything better to run in the slots, IMO.

Mishra's Baubles are stronger than Urza's Baubles in subtle ways.

You learn what the opponent is hiding with Brainstorm.
You learn what the opponent has selected with Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal.

These cards are usually more important to know than a random card in your opponent's hand, especially when you are playing a deck known for Unmasks and Cabal Therapies.

The problem is that you can’t actually –do- anything about those, whereas with Urza’s Bauble you can look at their hand and see something and always hit something with your first therapy if you saw a relevant spell.

As my teammate Hi-Val put it, LED reads:

Pay 3 life: discard your hand.   

And sometimes you can even cast a Stinkweed Imp or Golgari Thug off it.

EDIT: In the other thread, someone mentioned Contaigion and Soul Spike as potential answers for problematic Fish creatures, particularly Yixilid Jailer. I think this is a cute solution. There's only so many SB slots though; it seems likely that Emerald Charm, Chain of Vapors, Contaigion, Ancient Grudge, Leyline of the Void, and lands are all possibilities for the SB slots.

[nataz]

Most Vintage players tend not to actually prepare for the worst, but adapt only after they have, in fact, suffered the loss that we are theorizing about.

As a poor lost soul that played ichorid at waterbury in a sea of leylines; I will disagree in this instance. The ichorid buzz was all hype, helped a great deal by your articles. It hadn't really broken out at a mana-less version (nor did it ever really), yet over half the decks were playing leyline. With all the press ichorids getting now, I'd be surprised if leyline doesn't get reconsidered.

Extirpate, Crypt, Needle all can be SB'd and played against. I'm not really scared of any of those cards. Leyline would wreak me, and the fear almost certainly destroys any semblance of a real sideboard.

[Corvel]

Future Sight seems to give this deck alot more to work with.  Narcomoeba looks like it will be a powerhouse in Ichorid.  Street Wraith also looks like it will be good in many type 1 decks, but totaly broken in this one.  It gives you the ability to play with a '56 card deck' as well as helping to up the number of black creatures in the yard.  Nice work on your new list, this version seems very solid and a bit more stable than the older builds.

[bleakill]

I think that the sideboard options available to us don't address particular hate but rather act as answers to many hate pieces at once. So, for example, a sideboard consisting of 6 lands, 4 CoV, 3 Charm, 2 Contagion would answer leyline/planar void, needle, crypt+welder, jailer, random jitte-wielding animals, etc. Steve's list is also inherently resilient to Extirpate due to the inclusion of Nether Shadow, as well as the fact that Narcomoeba never hits the yard. So, the real question now is, which 13-15 cards can we afford to take out game 2 without diluting the list too much? It seems as if the only things that are eligible for siding out are disruption pieces as well as baubles/nethers.

[yespuhyren]

On another note, 8 Blood Mon.dec just owns this if it wins the coin flip.

Who is going to actually play 8-blood moon.dec...not to mention why would Ichorid lose on the coinflip if they only need one bazaar activation and one dredger to win.

[Sean Ryan]

Steve,

If Ichorid is indeed pushed to the forefront of the metagame post future Sight, and with the hype of your're article, what changes to the deck or sideboard are you anticipating may be necassary?

Thanks
Sean

[Neonico]

Im really dissapointed by such an answer : chalice  is a format breaker so play it because i theorised it. The vintage is defined by a metagame which allways change. So how can you theorised that this  piece of disruptiion is the good one or not ?
I just wanted to point that leyline seems superior to me because  ichorid  is the hype and will be played alot in the next weeks/Monthes. The  theory answer is clearly not eough compared to deck practice  and testings.

When i speack of goldfish, its allways  some goldfish with an opposition. Also, as opposite as you stated, your games  in tournaments arent  theory but  practice. I can tell you that with appropriate sideboard, you can allmost win agaist any hate. In game 1, Chalice versus Leyline debate  still exists for me because you cant afford to loose game 1 i the mirror. also, considering  your turn 3+ wins against gifts and slaver, leyline both slow them 2. And with the disruption acceleration and leylines, combo is slowed if it doesnt win on turn 1. All that have been show by my personnal testigs but im perhaps clearly wrong here ?

[diopter]

Im really dissapointed by such an answer : chalice  is a format breaker so play it because i theorised it. The vintage is defined by a metagame which allways change. So how can you theorised that this  piece of disruptiion is the good one or not ?
I just wanted to point that leyline seems superior to me because  ichorid  is the hype and will be played alot in the next weeks/Monthes. The  theory answer is clearly not eough compared to deck practice  and testings.

When i speack of goldfish, its allways  some goldfish with an opposition. Also, as opposite as you stated, your games  in tournaments arent  theory but  practice. I can tell you that with appropriate sideboard, you can allmost win agaist any hate. In game 1, Chalice versus Leyline debate  still exists for me because you cant afford to loose game 1 i the mirror. also, considering  your turn 3+ wins against gifts and slaver, leyline both slow them 2. And with the disruption acceleration and leylines, combo is slowed if it doesnt win on turn 1. All that have been show by my personnal testigs but im perhaps clearly wrong here ?

The question is, how often will you play the mirror, and how often will you play against Gifts, Long, or Slaver? The hype about Ichorid now is comparable to the hype about it in January when Steve started writing about it,
and at Waterbury, only 12 Ichorid decks showed up both Day 1 and Day 2, out of 243 decks. Compare to the infinite variants of Drain combo-control or Ritual combo or hybrids thereof, which show up in greater quantitites.

The point is that you are much more likely to face combo or combo-control in a tournament than a mirror. Chalice is so much more effective than Leyline against these decks - whereas Leyline only cuts off the graveyard, leaving you open to a devastating secondary bomb from Long or Tinker for Crypt from Slaver, Chalice hampers all of the broken opposing strategies, including Will.

[yespuhyren]

Lets also not forget if there is a hype and all the random people pick it up and start playing it (I assume the good players will keep to the decks they feel are best like stax/gifts/long etc) then the good players won't have anything to worry about.  While yes, Ichorid is busted and can be really good, I've also seen some really terrible Ichorid players who were just so incompetent they threw awa the match.  Regardless, if good players can fight through the hate of Stax and Leyline, then maybe this deck could work out.

[dicemanx]

The question is, how often will you play the mirror, and how often will you play against Gifts, Long, or Slaver? The hype about Ichorid now is comparable to the hype about it in January when Steve started writing about it,
and at Waterbury, only 12 Ichorid decks showed up both Day 1 and Day 2, out of 243 decks. Compare to the infinite variants of Drain combo-control or Ritual combo or hybrids thereof, which show up in greater quantitites.

It is true that the hype is similar to pre-Waterbury, except that the pre-FS Ichorid decks weren't that impressive. Post FS, the deck will have made some serious gains, so its frequency at major events might very well increase.

Having said that though, would any good players opt to play this deck at a major event? Unless you have the surprise factor going for you, the idea of possibly getting devastated by weaker players based on what they draw in their opening seven as opposed to their playskill isn't a very appealing scenario. On the flip side, weaker players might sieze the opportunity to bridge skill gaps by playing a deck like this, essentially leaving it up to chance as far as the outcome of the game is concerned. Such players don't even have to have much in the way of deckbuilding skill - the efforts in this forum and other forums will likely ensure that players will have access to near optimal lists of the archetype.

It is fun to try to build optimal versions of this deck, but this archetype will be a very ugly addition to the collection of high level vintage decks when it comes to actually playing with or against it at events. I can't wait to likewise face stuff like Belcher, MSX variants, or Flash combo after May 20th.