Meadbert Manaless Ichorid Primer

[voltron00x]

That was a Jerry Yang special.  The thing is, it was a relatively weak Dredge deck game 1 (because you can't run more then 15 creatures) and a pretty bad Oath deck game 2.  I don't actually have a list, sadly, but it was just like mana Dredge with 15 creatures and then a bunch of Oath stuff in the board.

It was a very cool idea that looked better on paper than it actually was.  I have a list saved somewhere... I'll look for it.

Menendian discussed it in one of his articles, it would've been about a year ago actually.

[scipio]

Found the list:

//Dredge Oath, by Jerry Yang
//Downloaded from StarCityGames.com
     4 City of Brass
     4 Bazaar of Baghdad
     1 Sundering Titan
     4 Bridge from Below
     4 Narcomoeba
     4 Cabal Therapy
     1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
     1 Brainstorm
     4 Unmask
     4 Careful Study
     4 Cephalid Coliseum
     4 Darkblast
     4 Golgari Grave-Troll
     3 Life from the Loam
     4 Stinkweed Imp
     2 Dread Return
     3 Ichorid
     1 Ancestral Recall
     4 Gemstone Mine

// Sideboard:
SB: 4 Force of Will
SB: 4 Forbidden Orchard
SB: 4 Oath of Druids
SB: 2 Hellkite Overlord
SB: 1 Gaea's Blessing

It does look attractive on paper.  It's the bluff potential that has me intrigued, particularly for game 3.  This list looks like a test run - perhaps it can be optimized with the newer sets.

[Razvan]

It essentially was there when people processed smennen's thought of "You absolutely need X cards vs. Ichorid, where X is ofter 7 or 8", and added 4 more, to an incredibly large and surprisingly narrow over-sideboarding plan. They would savage their own decks, removing draw, permission and such, in order to hope to draw into something that would prove to be useless.

I played it a bit, and it was awesome seeing people open with double leyline, crypt, jailer, grin like a fool, then die to oath. I even replaced the FoWs with Thoughtseizes, which made for TWELVE discard cards, just in case they actually did have some sort of card in their hand that might have done something at some point.

[scipio]

I played it a bit, and it was awesome seeing people open with double leyline, crypt, jailer, grin like a fool, then die to oath. I even replaced the FoWs with Thoughtseizes, which made for TWELVE discard cards, just in case they actually did have some sort of card in their hand that might have done something at some point.

Did you run loam?  If so, was it useful, or do you think there's a better effect in that card's place?  Did you ditch the cephalid coliseum since you were scaling down your blue?

[Razvan]

Yeah, I ran more or less that list. The deck is not any slower in G1 if you have FKZ (don't run it, I did briefly and it REALLY sucks G2/3), since you have 15 dredgers, and Loam is sort of useful in G1, but it's harder than you think to get 2 mana. You can sometimes get back wasted Bazaars, which is fun.

In G2/3, you rarely ever cast it, since with 12 discard, or 8 discard/4 fow, you generally will not get your Oath countered and just win off that. Loam / Cephalid Coliseum is pretty hot though, if you get 2 mana, you can use the ability to filter through your deck quicker and discard lands or useless stuff like Bridges / Darkblasts (the latter are not bad to remove some tokens from your opponent if you give him too many). Of course, if you can do that, then your GY works, so the OTHER plan might have been better, but just saying... you can .

It's a very clunky-ish engine if it can so be referred, but it works.

[Elfrago]

With 3 Loam that deck could certainly benefit from a maindeck Strip Mine. Don't know what to cut though.

Also, Blessing in the board seems a little out of place. After boarding you should still have 4 maindeck creatures, enough to avoid decking yourself with Oath.

Oh and btw, looks really fun!

[scipio]

but it's harder than you think to get 2 mana.

 In G2/3, you rarely ever cast it, since with 12 discard, or 8 discard/4 fow, you generally will not get your Oath countered and just win off that.

This is where the improvement should happen, in my opinion. Getting to 2 mana game one will be quite difficult.  I almost think serum powder would be more useful than loam/coliseum since you could use it to put an oath in hand game 2, while your opponent still thinks you're on dredge.  You pretty much have to board out the narc's (4), grave-troll (4), imp (4), and ichorid (3) to make any use of oath, and that means you can't use FKZ or hypnotist.  That leaves a bunch of useless crap in your deck - bridges, loam.  But if you ditch coliseum you don't really have the mana to support your blue spells anymore (losing brainstorm, ancestral, and careful study).  That could free you up to go stronger into black for the 2 tutors and duress/thoughtseize.  Bayou would be the obvious mana choice in that scenario. 

That leaves the creatures to figure out.  Good Oath creatures are evasive beatsticks.  Good dread return creatures are currently more combo oriented, or have strong comes-in-to-play effects.  Titan is a good crossover creature.  I think HK overlord or progenitus are best out of the board.  What could replace Akroma as a good dread return/oath target?

It seems the more I mentally tweak this the more it sounds like a pile.

[Elfrago]

I'm actually firing that list on mws and it works fine, it would wrk even better if I was a little more competent player 

The only change I made is +1 Angel of Despair -1 Akroma. Angel is way better in the first game and still good after boarding in the oath plan.
Regarding Serum Powders, fitting them is hard but I'm going to try the following:

-1 Angel of Despair
-2 Life from the Loam
-1 Careful Study
+4 Serum Powders

Life pretty much has to go, but I'd try to squeeze at least one in to keep a reasonable amount of dredgers.
Study should be less needed with the four powders.
And Angel, while fine, get's cut only becouse I want to keep a single DR target.

[scipio]

Life pretty much has to go, but I'd try to squeeze at least one in to keep a reasonable amount of dredgers.
Study should be less needed with the four powders.
And Angel, while fine, get's cut only becouse I want to keep a single DR target.

I think those are good choices.  Keeping coliseum and careful study runs well in place of something like cephalid sage game 1.  Loam as a singleton is probably decent - I forgot that it dredges for 3 - to recur bazaar or coliseum.  The deck then carries 13 dredgers, with 5 slightly less efficient than thug (dredge 3 instead of 4).  Unfortunately, you only have stinkweed and other ichorids to pitch to ichorid.  Hopefully he's only needed once or twice at most.  I think maybe you can ditch another careful study in order to keep the angel.  If she stays, do we need gaea's blessing out of the board, and if not, what goes there?

The real question is, how does it run post-board?  Does serum powder actually work as a pseudo-tutor for your oath?  I'm pretty sure you want duress/Thoughtseize out of the board so you continue to have enough black to support unmask.

[Soon-Man]

Since the days of Platz and people packing all sorts of random sb hate for Ichorid are kinda over, are emerald chard and chain still the best options in the board? what about things like ignot chewer and whispermare?

With the rise in played Bobs and Welders, I think its safe to say that darkblast deserves at least one spot in the main. Depending on your build, what are you supposed to cut and how many copies do you run?

[meadbert]

4 Chain of Vapor is an autoinclude because they answer almost everything.

I agree that Darkblast is still strong so I would think that having 2-3 post board is probably correct.

Emerald Charm is worse.  The biggest strike against Emerald Charm is that with Fatestitchers out there, Emerald Charm's untap ability becomes much worse since you can probably use a Fatestitcher anyway.

From there Wispmare may be better than Emerald Charm since it is less susceptible to Chalice@1 and Thorn of Amethyst.  Furthermore, it can be Dread Returned.

I see a lot of folks dropping the Enchantment removal to lower and lower levels, but I still recommend running a total 8 cards that can remove Leyline of the Void and Planar Void.  Chain of Vapor fills 4 slots, so Wispmares might make sense in the other slots.

A token Ancient Grudge, Ingot Chewer or Angel of Despair is nice in case of Platinum Angel of Ensnaring Bridge.

[voltron00x]

4 Chain of Vapor is an autoinclude because they answer almost everything.

I agree that Darkblast is still strong so I would think that having 2-3 post board is probably correct.

Emerald Charm is worse.  The biggest strike against Emerald Charm is that with Fatestitchers out there, Emerald Charm's untap ability becomes much worse since you can probably use a Fatestitcher anyway.

From there Wispmare may be better than Emerald Charm since it is less susceptible to Chalice@1 and Thorn of Amethyst.  Furthermore, it can be Dread Returned.

I see a lot of folks dropping the Enchantment removal to lower and lower levels, but I still recommend running a total 8 cards that can remove Leyline of the Void and Planar Void.  Chain of Vapor fills 4 slots, so Wispmares might make sense in the other slots.

A token Ancient Grudge, Ingot Chewer or Angel of Despair is nice in case of Platinum Angel of Ensnaring Bridge.

I agree with most of this, except about Emerald Charm.  If you're running Fatestitcher, running the exact same # of Emerald Charm in the SB gives you a seamless SB transition against decks with Leyline / Planar.  These kinds of easy SB swaps make Ichorid funcion much better post-SB.  In thise Wasteland-heavy environment, I'm running 2x Fatestitcher right now, w/ 2x Emerald Charm in the SB along with 2 Wispmare plus the Chain of Vapors x4.

[Quasimodo]

Hi, I'm new to Ichorid and was wondering if this spoiled Zendikar card would at all be useful.  




If you activated Bazaar turn 1 and 2 and then played a land you'd have them out at the same rate as Nacromoeba, plus you could discard them to bazaar turn 1, whereas Nacromoeba is then a dead card.  Also, you can exile Bloodghast to Unmask and Ichorid, though you're pretty much committed to not using FOW.  You could obviously reuse them many times with multiple lands, unlike Nac, though if you empty your hand and don't have lands nac is better in the library.  He also can't fly or block tho I don't know how relevant that is.  

Would any of you play him over nacromoeba?

[Elfrago]

Guys, we just got a new toy. Say hello to:



Which traslates into:

Iona, shield of Emeria "Enormous mana cost that we really don't care about"
White
Legendary creature - Angel

Flying

When Iona, shield of emeria enters the battlefield
chose a color.
Your opponents can't play spells of the chosen color.
7/7

[BruiZar]

The beautiful thing is, that it is 7/7 so it still is a decent clock unlike hypnotist. It also has evasion, kills Goyfs and Sphinx too. Also, it only affects cards your opponent plays. So if you name black, you can still cast your own therapies and unmasks and dread returns.

[Elfrago]

Hello everyone,
I have an upcoming tournament in october and I wanted to play Fatestitcher dredge. But looking at the results of the previus tournament in the same location I noticed that 60% of the partcipants had wasteland. It's Fatestitcher still good enough to deserve play in that meta or should I look at an older version with Petrified field?
Thanks for your advice

[Quasimodo]

Yay, more hate... is this good enough to see play in vintage against us?

Ravenous Trap
   2bb
Instant - Trap    Uncommon
If an opponent had three or more cards put into his or her graveyard from anywhere this turn, you may pay 0 rather than pay Ravenous Trap's mana cost.
Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.

[Elfrago]

Yay, more hate... is this good enough to see play in vintage against us?

Ravenous Trap
   2bb
Instant - Trap    Uncommon
If an opponent had three or more cards put into his or her graveyard from anywhere this turn, you may pay 0 rather than pay Ravenous Trap's mana cost.
Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.

Good enough? Yes.
Better than the existing? Nope.

This is worse than tormod. Tomod can only be solved via Unmask, Chalice or by playing around it's activaton.
This can be solved via Cabal,Unmask and obv playing around.

But Tormod will usually come down on turn 1 so you only have turn 1 on the play to deal with it through Unamask and Chalice.
This instead sticks in hand until used, so it can be discarded even in later turns (obv avoid to dredge in the same turn so it can't be used in response to discard!)
I guess, more realistically, that you have until turn two to deal with the trap, becouse if played on turn 1 it will do little damage to you and on turn 2 you can avoid dredging on the draw step, play land + cabal, discard it and use baazar.

[voltron00x]

There are ways to play around the card, but its still very good.  The more varied, playable tools there are that all decks can access, the scarier it gets to play with Ichorid:

1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
4 Leyline of the Void

This kind of stuff gets tough because it makes SB choices far more difficult, let alone when people go nuts like this:

1 Extirpate
1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
1 Relic
2 Leyline of the Void

[Elfrago]

There are ways to play around the card, but its still very good.  The more varied, playable tools there are that all decks can access, the scarier it gets to play with Ichorid:

1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
4 Leyline of the Void

This kind of stuff gets tough because it makes SB choices far more difficult, let alone when people go nuts like this:

1 Extirpate
1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
1 Relic
2 Leyline of the Void

Indeed diversifing your hate is certainly the best startegy against Ichorid, but this card changes nothing. There was already plenty of hate avaible, enough to fill 5-6 sb slots (becouse lest face it, nobody has 8 slots vs Ichorid alone). be prepared against this card becouse it's going to be played a lot, at least until they figure it's worse than tormod's.

[voltron00x]

There are ways to play around the card, but its still very good.  The more varied, playable tools there are that all decks can access, the scarier it gets to play with Ichorid:

1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
4 Leyline of the Void

This kind of stuff gets tough because it makes SB choices far more difficult, let alone when people go nuts like this:

1 Extirpate
1 Jailer
1 Trap
2 Tormod's
1 Relic
2 Leyline of the Void

Indeed diversifing your hate is certainly the best startegy against Ichorid, but this card changes nothing. There was already plenty of hate avaible, enough to fill 5-6 sb slots (becouse lest face it, nobody has 8 slots vs Ichorid alone). be prepared against this card becouse it's going to be played a lot, at least until they figure it's worse than tormod's.

See, I'm sorry, I gotta disagree with this pretty strongly.  This card can absolutely nail you if you're playing Ichorid and you're not prepared.  With Tormod's Crypt, you can play around it and easily answer it with Needle, Chewer, and Chalice in addition to Unmask.  Trap is really only answered by Unmask effectively.  At the point where you'd be able to Cabal Therapy it away with flashback, it can already nail you.  If you play Bazaar and use it EOT and again on Upkeep, and get hit with Trap because you didn't have Unmask, you're really set back.  If you don't use it on Upkeep and wait and play a land and Cabal Therapy, you're slowing yourself down considerably and opening up to being raced or giving them a chance to draw other hate, especially if they don't even have Trap in hand, or even in their SB.  This card legitimately feels like it can trap an unprepared Ichorid player.  Its very flavorful, I just don't see why its really necessary... unless Extended Dredge is much better than everyone has admitted thus far (which is possible, mind you).

[marcb]

I agree with voltron00x. Every sideboard card in Ichorid attacks permantents, so even post-board therapy and unmask are the only ways to combat this trap (unless they play FOW), and you can always trap in response.

[Troy_Costisick]

The new Trap forces the decision on whether or not to Therapy before activating Bazaar.  That's a really hard choice.  Making hard choices is not something the Ichorid player has to face very often, so forcing them into more high risk plays will, over time, reduce the potence of the archetype.

Peace,

-Troy

[Soon-Man]

I havent been playing for the last couple months so I'm a little out of the loop, but there seems to be a lot of anti-graveyard strategy going around. Is it still worth it to bring a Ichorid deck to a tourney? I just want to know if it's time for me to start playing key/vault combo like everyone else yet or not.

[Adan]

I havent been playing for the last couple months so I'm a little out of the loop, but there seems to be a lot of anti-graveyard strategy going around. Is it still worth it to bring a Ichorid deck to a tourney? I just want to know if it's time for me to start playing key/vault combo like everyone else yet or not.

Although there is indeed a lot of Dredgehate played in Vintage, Ichorid is still Top8ing a lot and also winning tournaments from time to time.
That is because Ichorid is - despite being unpowered - is one of the most explosive Vintage decks in the current meta against which almost every deck would fold automatically if it doesn't carry hate against it.

[Womba]

I havent been playing for the last couple months so I'm a little out of the loop, but there seems to be a lot of anti-graveyard strategy going around. Is it still worth it to bring a Ichorid deck to a tourney? I just want to know if it's time for me to start playing key/vault combo like everyone else yet or not.

Although there is indeed a lot of Dredgehate played in Vintage, Ichorid is still Top8ing a lot and also winning tournaments from time to time.
That is because Ichorid is - despite being unpowered - is one of the most explosive Vintage decks in the current meta against which almost every deck would fold automatically if it doesn't carry hate against it.

I would say it depends how lucky you feel...While it is very explosive, a lot of your matches in games 2 and 3 will come down to if your opponent can draw/play the hate cards they bring in against you. Also it will come down to how well you can play the deck around and through the hate cards with what you have in your sideboard.  

[Soon-Man]

So what does the board look like now a days? And what is the thinking on Mana vs. Manaless?

[meadbert]

4 Undiscovered Paradise (Props to Vroman!)
4 Cephalid Colliseum
2 Oboro,Palace In The Clouds
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Serum Powder
2 Altar Of Dementia (A good player would use 1 Possessed Portal Here) (Props to Harlequin!!)
3 Sharuum,The Hegemon
4 Bridge From Below
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Fatestitcher
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
sideboard
4 Unmask
4 Force Of Will
3 Echoing Truth
4 Chain Of Vapor

That is what I would run today.  Here are my reasonings:

Fatestitcher is broken.  It is better than a flashback Careful Study.  Once one decides to run Fatestitcher, a Serum Powder version of Dredge makes more sense, since Fatestitcher is only broken with Bazaar out to untap.  Also, with Fatestitchers eating up free mana it makes it tougher to play Careful Study or Breakthrough.

The next card to consider is Bloodghast.  One tidbit I noticed a while ago is that Narcomoeba is almost a better combo enabler than Bridge from Below for Dread Returning on turn 2.  Bloodghast is potentially better than Narcomoeba because any that start in hand or are drawn off Bazaar on turn 1 can be returned.  This makes them at least 50% better.  The "downside" to Bloodghast is that you need to hit that land drop, which you want to hit anyway to pay for Fatestitcher.  The result is that your deck is now weak if you miss your second land drop.  Running lands is important.  Here there are plenty off possibilities:
1:  Dakmoor Salvage - Might have a place in a different deck that wants to do stuff on turn 3 and play it slow.  Dredging for only 2 sucks.  Not producing   sucks and coming into play sucks.  Dredgeing this guy on turn 2 to then return Ashen Ghoul on turn 3 seems like a solid use, but that is totally different deck.
2:  Mox Diamond - Dissynergy with Bloodghast
3:  Gemstone Caverns - Dissynergy with Bloodghast if on draw and dissynergy with Fatestitcher on play.
4:  Undiscovered Paradise - Broken.  Uber synergy with Bloodghast.  Synergy with Fatestitcher.  Can hardcast Therapy.
5:  Cephalid Colliseum - Broken since you can potentially use this on turn 3 if you need to dodge needle.  Synergy with Fatestitcher and Bloodghast.  Cannot hardcast Therapy.
6:  Oboro Palace in the Clouds - Good.  Has synergy with Fatestitcher and Uber Synergy with Bloodghast.
7:  Petrified Field - Gets back Bazaar if Wasted.  Hits 2 land drops for Blood ghast. Just too slow right now.

10 Lands seemed to be about the right number to run.  I dropped all disruption other than Therapy to go for the turn 2 win.
This left 8 Dread Return slots.

Here there were several directions to go in.  I considered running guys that are good independently like Yosei, the Morning Star and Sadistic Hypnotist.  Those also basically win you the game if you get them together.  That seemed good.  I also tried various drawing creatures and Zealot.  That seemed pretty good.

Eventually I decided that I liked returning Lotus and LED to go nuts with extra Fatestitchers.  That made Witness and Sharuum good.  Sharuum has the nice infinite loop advantage and then can just win with Altar or Portal.

Altar is basically better since it is so good when you get it alone.  It is not that uncommon to have only a little gas and then Dread Return Sharuum for Altar.  Then you have like 20 power worth of creatures out so you mill 20 cards and go nuts from there.  Even if you have very little in terms of creatures you can at a minimum mess up top deck Tutors.  It is tempting to be greedy and run 2 Altar and that is the more broken strategy.  I have given into the greed.  A better player might fear various permanents like Platinum Angel that could keep them from winning and run a token Portal.  By the way thanks to Harlequin for these ideas.  He suggested both in a Hermid Druid deck.

Lotus and LED are broken for getting back with Sharuum.  By the way a very tough decision is whether to crack LED on turn 1.  Basically you have a solid shot at a turn 1 win if you do, but if it does not work out you have no land drops which leaves your deck weak.  Sometimes you are better off holding LED till after hitting turn 2 land drop.

An advantage of the new mana base is that with more lands you actually have a reasonable shot of casting a 2cc spell.  The bad news is that with only 4 Rainbow lands you are limited to free or blue spells.
The board has the bounce spells for Leyline or Jailer or whatever and then  Force and Unmask to stop everything else.

Generally I board out all Dread Return targets and those artifacts that they get back (including Lotus + LED)
I also board out all but 1 Dread Return.
That is 9 cards right there.

I then board out 3 Fatestitchers, 1 Bloodghast, 1 Thug and 1 Imp.  (Would board out Narcomoeba, but blue count needed for Force)

If you know your opponent has no Leylines then ditch the Echoing Truths and hope to Unmask, Force or Chain their threat.  In that case keep in your Bloodghast, Thug and Imp.

[Beralt]

Meadbert,

Love the direction you are taking Ichorid.  Force of Will in the side has been getting more and more credit, and this will be truer and truer with Ravenous Trap possibly rearing it's graveyard hating head.  I have seen the Bridge/Double Sharuums before but not combined with the Fatesticher, these just seem insane second turn U land and then Dread Return into Sharuum getting LED or Lotus is pretty much a win on the spot.  Casting all of your Fatestichers just seems ridiculous, basically it's getting you 2-3 timewalks.  I think I like the Possessed Portal over the Second Altar, but this is coming from someone who loves the locking effect of the Portal (I remember it fondly from days of Cerebral Assasin).  Strangely and I think that this has been coming for awhile, Ichorid as a deck archetype remains viable, but Ichorid the card is slowly fading as it is usurped by the utilty that is the Ghast.  If you want to concentrate more on the Ghast you could go with Underground Seas (allowing you access to both U & B) and utilize Fetchlands, increasing the land interplay with Ghast.

*Edit - Wanted to add that I might include a Dryad Arbor to reanimate and activate Bloodghasts.

[meadbert]

I totally left Fetches out by accident!  Those are good.  The trouble is they force you to run Duals which are not good.  Basically I would not drop Colliseums.
This means i would be swapping out Undiscovered Paradises and Oboros.  If you run a 3/3 fetch configuration then you have a 50% chance of just having a dual which is weak.  If you run 4 Fetches and only 2 Duals, then you run the risk of RFGing or Dredging both Duals.  Either way is tough.  I think Paradize and Oboro are slightly better just because in case the game goes long they give you inevitability the way Ichorid used to.  Without them you get stuck with a few creatures in play and no way to reload.  This can be annoying when you are hated out and staring down Goyf.  Being able to get 2 Bloodghasts and 4 Bridge tokens a turn will destroy aggro in the long game.

As far as comboing out I think Paradise and Oboro are slightly worse, but that is more than made up for by their strength in a long game.