Undefeated at Myriad's March 1st Event with Mana'd Ichorid

[heiner]

my observation with the dec:

- bazaar is still by far the best enabler, that why manaless ichorid has an advantage as it plays 8 BoB
- Not having to rely on BoB is really strong so too it evens out
- Crop Rotation is definitely playable in the angel slot
- I would strongly suggest to change one land for a chrome mox, its really good!

[Suicideking]

From what i've seen angel is one of the best cards in the deck.  Even picking off lands against combo can be huge.

[heiner]

why not just win instead of destroying a land ??
Angel is only needed vs. platz first game.

[nataz]

I've used angel to pick off an active EE against bomberman so I could go off with zombies that turn.

All this said, is this entire discussion a temptest in a teapot kinda thing? As far as I can tell, this was an 11 man event, not exactly the proving ground needed for a coming out party. It may be the real deal, and its certainly nice to have someone post a mana ichorid list in public, but I'm not convinced its vetted yet.

[credmond]

I have been testing this deck and it is definitely strong.

You need to really goldfish it a lot to get a sense of the risks involved with each hand of seven.

Since you are not playing 4 serum powders you can't of course rely on having bazaar each time. The alternate hands you keep are those with some combination of careful study, breakthrough, and/or cephalid coliseum with threshold in sight.

Those careful study/breakthrough hands can sometimes lead all the way to turn 1 wins and can be crazy explosive. They are also the riskiest.

The weakness is if an opponent forces the careful study you are relying on to jump start the deck then you can be totally stymied and a sitting duck for a few turns until you can jump start again.

The deck will occasionally misfire as well, especially with hands without bazaar, e.g the breakthrough or careful study won't keep chaining into more dredgers and you stall out.

The games you lose are those where you dont initially hit the dredgers you need or don't chain into dredgers. So the blue draw hands need to be carefully evaluated when you mulligan.

I recommend testing then having more dredgers in the main than the list ELD posted (for starters  -1 flame-kiln  or -1 cephalid sage and + 1 golgari thug) since its critical to hit dredgers on the blue draw hands and getting cabal therapy online and keeping dredgers chaining into dredgers. The real strength of this deck comes out when you get the cabal therapy shenanigans online and strip away your opponents countermeasures and reduce his hand to mush. Once you cabal a couple of times the games is effectively over and it could just as well be a "win next turn" grave troll as a "win now" flamekiln that finishes the opponent off.

I have noticed that therapies, and therapying well, become extremely important, especially since this deck lacks the chalices and leylines of manaless ichorid to disrupt and slow down the opponent. The deck can sometimes give you a lot of explosiveness but only one chance at cabal therapying before passing the turn and being aware of what your opponents real chances at that point are and what cards they need to have in hand to beat you from that point on and targeting those even if they are singletons like fastbond is important (rather than the more usual naming force of will in a blind situation to clear the way).

[ELD]

I've used angel to pick off an active EE against bomberman so I could go off with zombies that turn.

All this said, is this entire discussion a temptest in a teapot kinda thing? As far as I can tell, this was an 11 man event, not exactly the proving ground needed for a coming out party. It may be the real deal, and its certainly nice to have someone post a mana ichorid list in public, but I'm not convinced its vetted yet.

Saccing one creature to Therapy to Make 3 or 4 zombies, then return Golgari Grave Troll, will either force them to use EE, or set you up to win next turn.  With enough cards in the graveyard, you can force the issue and return Grave Troll then Flamekin.  With only one EE, they cannot break it up if you have your entire deck in the graveyard.  Since EE doesn't affect the engine, it is one of the easiest cards to play around. 

The event had 14 players, and the quality of my 4 rounds was already stated.  This is the same as making Top 4 in a 32 man event.  TK already won a larger event with a similar list, but did not post it online.  Luckily I didn't ask you if this event was good enough for a debut as the community would still be in the dark about it.  Ichorid is at it's best at smaller events.  Winning 3 rounds and drawing in is what Ichorid does.  From there anything can happen.  Ichorid is not the deck you want to take to a 7 or 8 round event, but that is irrelevant.  The deck is amazing at what it does, and an excellent option for the almost weekly Mox Tournaments that we are so fortunate to enjoy in New England. 

[Anusien]

I had a joke with BrassMan about the Ichorid matchup: "Which is worse, Duress against Ichorid hitting nothing, or Thoughtseize against Ichorid and taking something?"  That said, you actually have relevant cards to counter/get Duressed/get Unmasked.  Is that relevant?  What about being behind Stax on the draw and them going turn 1 Sphere, turn 2 Sphere?  You only have 11 real lands.

[ELD]

This build, by it's design, sets up gambits.  Sometimes the cards you mentioned matter, and sometimes they do not.  This means your opponent is now playing an inconsistent deck, which is very good position to put them in over the long term.  A player can leave in discard spells, but they will often be dead, or actually further help by taking a card I would rather have in the graveyard.  Stax can lock out spells, but in doing so be unable to stop Ichorid, Bazaar, Colosseum, and the dredge engine.  The cards you mention are also only usable on the play, which makes them even more conditional.  If you get to Game 3 and go first, none of those cards even matter very often.  In general, the extra mana makes Spheres much worse, as you will very often be able to pay one or two mana to play flashback on your spells.  Discard vs a deck that plans to dump it's entire hand into the graveyard is often terrible.  Counters vs Ichorid only matters on a small percentage of hands.  In short, sometimes they get you, but overall I'm happy if my opponent is in that kind of position. 

[nataz]

@ the EE example

While its true under optimal conditions EE isnt that hard to play around What I was suggesting is that Angel came in hand when my back was against the wall. I needed to win that turn, not the next one, and It wouldnt have happend with out angel. Sure, over all its a small percentage of the time, but I was surprised at how many times angel came in handy. Part of this was because it was fairly unexpected for ichorid to have an effect on the board, the normal mentality is that once something is out of the hand its safe.

Don't get me wrong, im wicked glad that you decided to play the deck/post the list. Mana ichorid lists have been floating around in ernest since TK's win months ago, but until this I hadnt seen a public discussion thread until yours.

Winning 3 rounds and drawing in is what Ichorid does.  From there anything can happen.  Ichorid is not the deck you want to take to a 7 or 8 round event, but that is irrelevant.

I disagree, I think its very relevant. I'm wont argue that the deck is strong in theory, that would be silly. I was just noteing that wining three rds. and then drawing to top 8 doesnt a great deck make. Worse then Gat won waterbury 2 seasons ago, and it didnt exactly take vintage by storm. Sometimes its not about the wins, its about consistantly preforming. This was a single small event, and it hardly constitutes GAT like comparisons of dominance against the field. Doubly so if you can't take it to a 7 round event because of consistancy issues.  People are heaping all types of praise on a deck that you wouldnt even play yourself if the field was 64+, hence my temptest statement.

How good can a deck be if you can't win a big event with any consistancy?

[ELD]

The deck has a self destruct factor, just like Flash.  There will be some games where you just go no where, which is not acceptable to me for a large event.  Not everyone feels the same way about the occasional mull into game loss though.  Flash has done very well, even in large events.  This build of Ichorid is certainly capable of being in the same category.  If this deck starts showing up in numbers, and people do not have an adequate sideboard plan, it could easily win a large event.  I wouldn't personally play anything but Gush decks right now, as I am happy with my results with GAT. 

As far as taking Vintage by storm, one would do well to remember that in Vintage, people play what they want to play.  People do not often play the deck they think is best.  They have a wide range of reasons for shuffling up any given pile of cards.  I think this deck is a fine choice for smaller events, which was the point I was proving when I brought it to a small event.  I suspect a good player running this list would find similar results attainable in a 5 round event. 

[TK]

yeah even if the event was small its still saying something that the deck has been played twice and won twice. The tourney i won was 42 players.