Waterbury Day 2 Top 8 w/ Ichorid

How I learned to Love the Fatesticher

-or-

A Stich in Time Saves a Top 8 Berth

-or-

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
   Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
   Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

Standard functioning disclaimer -

This reports going to be like my night with Travis’ mother, “quick, dirty and foggy on the details” – If I forget, miss, or blatantly lie about any of the details contained here within, tough. Go home and cry. Or you can correct me, either one. Seriously, 4 hours of sleep, followed by 4.5 hours of travel, followed by 7 rounds of magic – you all should be happy I was still wearing pants at the end of the day, let alone writing down life totals for a report.

There will be no pictures or videos of any sort; I forgot to take my camera out of my car that morning. Whoops. Yea, I know about 90% of the people who read my reports just clicked the back button. How else could I normally entice sane, law abiding TMD’rs to read my reports on dredge, a deck that lives somewhere below stealing candy from babies on the moral code of ethics.

Lets take a step back shall we.

Me: My name is _______, and I’m a dredge player.
Group: Hello Jared
Me: I haven’t played real “casting spells to win” magic since flash got the axe
Group: You played flash, get the hell out of our meeting you freak!

Decklist!

// Mana (12)

   1 Riftstone Portal
   4 Cephalid Coliseum
   3 Chrome Mox
   1 Lotus Petal
   1 Black Lotus
   1 Lion's Eye Diamond
   1 Mox Sapphire

// Draw (11)

   4 Bazaar of Baghdad
   4 Fatestitcher
   4 Serum Powder

// Win (12)

   1 Eternal Witness
   1 Flame-Kin Zealot
   3 Ichorid
   4 Narcomoeba
   3 Dread Return

// Dreadge (11)

   4 Golgari Grave-Troll
   3 Golgari Thug
   4 Stinkweed Imp

// Spells (13)

   4 Chalice of the Void
   1 Ancient Grudge
   4 Bridge from Below
   4 Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
   2 Gemstone Mine
   2 Contagion
   4 Chain of Vapor
   3 Pithing Needle
   3 Emerald Charm
   1 Darkblast

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
   The best lack all conviction, while the worst
   Are full of passionate intensity.

Okay, lets chat. I’ve been wanted to tell you all about ichorid for a while. See, fatesticher is the stone cold nuts. Let me say that again. Fatesticher. Is. The. Stone. Cold. Nuts. Got it? Now, of course there are going to be some qualifiers. First, it makes your deck super reliant on Bazaar. I’ve tried most every ichorid configuration in the book, heck I’ve been playing it on an off for literally years now, and I’m 99.9% sure that if you are going to run fatestichers you need to run serum powder.

Normal mana ichorid runs breakthrough/careful study/some combination of the two. Cephalid Coliseum -> Careful Study -> Breakthrough is the nuts; But Careful Study -> Fatesticher is blah. You can chain draw spells and play them over two turns with a blue mana, but Fatesticher needs a Bazaar to be active.

So my logic was this. Fatesticher > Careful Study. Similar casting costs, but Fatesticher is like a Careful Study that has flashback. And fires Cabal Therapy. And fires Dread Return. And attacks. And can’t be countered. And cooks you eggs and bacon in the morning while whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

Serum powder > Breakthrough. Breakthrough is obv fantastic. If you have dredgers in your yard. If you have a blue mana. If you have something other then your draw step to keep the chain going. If they don’t counter it. If they don’t duress it. If they don’t play chalice at 1.

If wishes were fishes then we’d all eat fish sticks – or something like that.

Serum Powder = Bazaar. Un-force-able, un-drain-able, un-REB-able, un-chalice-able, un-duress-able, un-deniable hotness. Sure, its 2 less draws the first time, but it breaks even on turn 2 AND it plows though on turn 3 – 4. Yes, ichorid matches go past turn 2, amazing I know.

Down side of all this sexy Fatesticher lovn’ is of course that pesky reliant on Bazaar statement. Wasteland is the suck. Wasteland and Pithing Needle have a baby and it’s called the Super Suck. Boo – freak’n hoo. Did I mention I can win on turn 1 with a number of different hands?

Turn 1 opponent: Do something irrelevant
Turn 1 me:
a.   Bazaar -> Draw 2 (look I’ve seen 9 cards now!)
b.   Discard Dredgers + Fatesticher + w/e
c.   Play FAST mana (chrome, LED, Saph, Lotus)
d.   Unearth Fatesticher
e.   Repeat “a”
f.
   i. repeat “b” and “d” if you had a multi fast mana hand start (e.g., LED, Lotus, or combo saph/petal/multi chrome)

   ii. Use Zombie tokens, Narco, Fatestichers -> Dread Return -> Witness -> LED/Lotus -> MORE FATESTICHERS! Rawr

g.   Win with FKZ + Trolls/Zombies!

Okay, sure, you have to live in the land of gumdrops and sugar plum fae, but some form of that happens more often then you might think. Bringing back a 10/10 troll turn 1 while shooting off multiple therapies, and maybe a little chalice at zero throw down for effect, can really knock the wind out of your opponents sail.

Round 1: Dan Yarrington
w/ deck I made suggestions on that morning at Myraid – or – Hey, why don’t you run maindeck Needle? (shoots self in foot)

G1:
I mull to 4. Bazaar, LED, dredger, and X. Lay Bazaar, find sticher and bridge. Discard sticher, bridge, dredger. Play LED. Replay Fatesticher – dredge with bazaar -> more stitchers -> more dredgeing -> narco’s -> cabal thep -> tokens -> cabal therp -> tokens -> dread return -> troll -> cabal therp -> more tokens -> dread return x2 -> 2 trolls and lots of tokens -> pass.

Dan does stuff and then loses.

G2:
See game 1. On the plus side, Dan does get to send an Ichorid plowing.

Record
1-0

Can’t do all that without fast mana though -> Speaking of which…

Fast Mana in Fatesticher Ichorid
A Novel
By: Nataz

First turn Sticher activations are good. Less sideboard options since you are locked into blue is bad. YMMV.

THE END

p.s.
Dumbledore dies at the end of book 6

Surely some revelation is at hand;
   Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
   The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
   When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
   Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;

Round 2: Guy from NJ, had the round 3 feature match, name started with “B”…
w/ Tez

G1: He wins the roll. T1 drops 3x mox, lotus, and academy. Must be nice. I draw a turn 2 win, but can’t start the fatesticher chain until the next turn since my second mana source is a land. I dump trolls and bridges, and cross my fingers. Alass, it was to no avail. He EOT gifts for the win, made easier with the EOT vamp he was holding. Meh, from his gifts pile I assumed he had the will in hand. w/e, same difference as he smashes face his turn for the win.

G2: I have a decent grip of cards with Bazaar and dredgers after multiple powders, but he throws out a lot of early hate. Relic and Crypt join the party, and I have to scramble to force activations off a grudge. I toss out a cabal therp and try to work his deck in my mind. For some reason I name TFK since he has been drawing a ton of cards off it last game and this one, but he flashes a demonic tutor instead. Crap. He plays it right, and even with chain I can’t beat him as he combo’s out for the win. Still, even with two pieces of hate out all was not lost until manages to demonic -> goodness -> will. Given even a smidgen of time or a proper therp call I’m pretty sure I could have eked it out.

Record 1-1

Nice enough guy but now I’m 1-1. Crap. Who wins G1 against Ichorid? Tez apparently.

Tez is everywhere, and stupidly that means that maindeck ichorid hate is everywhere. Tez likes to run a MD relic or Crypt in NE, not to mention the fact that I still contend that Tez has a decent chance of wining a race if it goes first. Hence, my maindeck grudge and portal. Portal is obv for a blue deck that plays from the gy trying to get green, and grudge makes opponents fire early enough to reload. Space was tight, but I probably should have run 2 of each. I also left them in for all sideboard games to help against needle AND to play needles of my own off Bazaar.

The third dread return helps the witness chain along with the “win with huge troll” plan, and the third ichorid (one more then I normally run) helps in matches where you have to grind it out in the face of gy hate. With an ichorid and a bridge (or two) in the graveyard to provide pressure, I can stop dredging in the face of a crypt/relic, and buy myself enough deck to reload after the inevitable activation.

Gemstone Mine helps cast e-charm and darkblast when they come in. Contagion comes in when I suspect jailers. Needle and Chain come in every game 2 when I win game 1.

Chalice comes out on the draw. In addition 1 fatesticher, zelot, LED, witness, a dread return, an ichorid, a thug, a chrome mox, a cephalid coliseum, can all come out depending on what I need to bring in.

Moving on, I may have gotten round 3/4 out of order. Please go ahead and correct me.

Round 3: AJ
w/ fish

G1: I have a wicked hand with bazaar, sticher, LED, but no dredgers. I bazaar, no dredgers. I sticher, and bazaar again. No dredgers no stichers. I burn for 2 and pass the turn with a gy full of no dredgers, no hand, and a bazaar on the table. Opponent goes t1 wasteland. Ouch. T2 I knock on my deck and shout bazaar. It’s a bridge. Opponent plays something irrelevant. T3 I knock again. It’s a bazaar. Heh. That’s gotta hurt. I do the draw thing, and toss a couple of trolls and the bridge into the graveyard. It’s all over from there.

G2: I have bazaar, he has waste. I try and grind it out with draw steps, he kills me with factories. How embarrassing.

G3: I have to play though a bunch of EE’s, and am eventually left low on cards. Still, a narco and a troll, backed by cabal therapies to keep bounce and fire/ice out of contention, get there in the end.

Record
2-1

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
   A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
   Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
   Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

Round 4: Josh
w/ Tez and Oath SB

G1: Josh mentions that there is a lot of ichorid floating around and hopes that I’m not paying it. Yay. I roll out on a good hand, standard dredge with Bazaar, get creatures, blah blah blah. He plays crypt, I play though it. Tipping point comes as Josh is about to recover and has a single card in hand. I correctly guess Demonic Tutor for Cabal Therapy and cut him off from the win. At some point in time I also note him playing Leviathan (when he is tapped out I see Lev, Drain, and FOW off a Cabal), I snag the FOW and clear the way for a Dread Return for the win.

G2: He has hate (relic, crypt, etc), but I’m still feeling pretty good. Big moment comes when I Cabal Therapy his hand and see 2x Oath in addition to e-truth, and tol academy. At this point in time I have a needle on relic, so obv E-truth is an issue, but I panic. He has the mana for Oath, and I side boarded out my FKZ. I know that I can win the turn after next, but I’ll have to leave creatures on the board and be open to an oath activation. All kinds of bad stuff floats though my head as I remember playing against tide spout. For whatever reason the fear gets a hold of me and I refuse to let him have even a single oath activation. I snag the oath, leaving him the etruth to hit my needle on relic. The logic is that I have plenty of deck left, and I should be able to reload and just kill him.

Well, that doesn’t happen. He bounces needle, and nukes the GY. Before I recover he wins with vault/key and that stupid dmg absorbing angel. Really…if I’d had known that was what he’d oath up I’d have let him have it. Apparently he has sideboarded out his leviathan. What evs.

G3: We go to time quickly, and then to turns. I can’t play thought he hate quickly enough, and he is just playing to stay alive since he only has 2 of the 5 turns.

Something for all players to note. When Grave Troll comes into play it counts itself as a creature in the grave yard. No, I can’t explain why, but I also can hardly name all the phases in the attack step, I just know it happens that way. At one point Josh and me disagree and we call a judge (which you should always do if you are unsure about something). The judge backs Josh, and I ask him to double check. He comes back in favor of me. Trust me folks, not a tourney goes by where I don’t have to have a judge come over on this issue.

Draw
Record 2-1-1

Round 5: Matt
Win

My hand hurts, and I’m tired of typing.

Fine, whatever.

G1: He starts with a basic swamp. I think “Scrub?” and mentally prepare myself for some sort of terrible sui-black. After a Cabal Therapy reveals dark rituals, will, and Merchant Scroll, I pretty quickly deduce that he is playing C-C-C-Combo! Yes, I am that good of a player. I snag the Will and the Scroll, which is good since he gets blue mana, and beat him over the head with Ichorids, Trolls, and Zombies. I know at some point he played a TW as well, but it didn’t really produce.

G2: Um, from my “notes” (i.e., the words Jailer with a sad face, and life totals) it looks like I lose to a Jailer that I couldn’t find answers for.

G3: Final game is EPIC. By now the lack of sleep is starting to get to me. I’m getting chatty. I’m really not trying to put the guy on tilt, but I can’t help it. We miss a crypt roll early on in the match (we correct it before the end of his turn) but the judge gives us both warnings for failure to maintain game state. I resolve not to do that again, and start keeping very careful track of mana, and spells for storm confirming verbally and writing everything down. I get a narco into play, and he gets a couple of jailers and a needle on Bazzar. He goes off, casting something like 19 spells on a will turn and somehow manages not to get there. Since he had h-recalled himself early in his will turn, AND given me a whole new 7 with bazaar on the board the game gets a lot easier for me. I punt pretty hard when I discard my only black cards and shut off my own contagion (for the jailers), but win anyways with Narco beats and crypt activations. Woot Woot.

Record 3-1-1

The darkness drops again but now I know
   That twenty centuries of stony sleep
   Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Rd 6: Craig
w/ Tez

So, Craig can’t get in with X-2 whereas I’m almost a lock at 13 points plus high tiebreakers. Craig is a friend who rode down with me and the Yarringtons and decides to scoop to me and give me the win. Not to shabby. We still play out a few games for fun.

G1: Craig goes first and gets a lotus + land -> key, and vault. Son of a bitch. Still, I have a redic hand, and figure I might get there. I have a couple of options, but the best is to dredge enough to get my grudge online and then crush dreams. T1 I go off with bazaar, sapphire, and fatestichers, but I end up not dredging enough.

G2: I again go off early but the key moment is when Craig plays extirpate mid-combo. The question was whether to nail narco on the stack, or wait and hit my bridges post dredging. Neither choice was good considering I had enough fatestichers to dread return, and had four bridges for DR -> Troll -> Cabal Therapy -> 4x Tokens -> Cabal Therapy + DR again -> Another Troll. He ended up hitting the Narcos, and I started the Troll/DR/Cabal Therapy combo for the win.

G3: Scout!

Long story short, Craig had very little in the way of ichorid hate besides the md relic. I believe he ended up sideboarding in a couple of extirpates, and not much else of note.

Record 4-1-1

We break for the rest of the round and play hilarious games with Ray’s oversized cards. My deck was sick with Mirror Universe, Shivan Dragon, and Chaos Orb.

Top8: Jason Ford
w/ tarmo and good stuff.dec

So we had been talking earlier about how much I didn’t want to see him in the swiss. Of course I dodge because I’m good like that. The man is running md ichorid hate in SPADES. Relic, Crypt, Needle, and Trinket Mage to find all of them. Folks, this is a worse beating for ichorid then Bomberman since his tarmo actually puts you on a clock. Of course, because I’m so good at dodging him in the swiss, I get paired with him round 1 of top 8. He is happy. I am sad. Wtf, what kind of sick bastard is happy to face dredge?

-aside on Jason Ford, a.k.a. anything but a sick bastard

Type 1 needs people like Jason. Last time I played Jason was in the top 8 of a Myraid event. Again, he was playing tarmo-bazaar-Zombie infestation.dec (no blue!), and I was obv playing ichorid. I beat him in a tight 3 against all sorts of hate, and still he was one of the most congenial guys I had met all day. He was also a cross over from other formats.

See, Jason is young, a nice guy, willing to put the effort into learning a new format, willing to travel and spend money on a new format, and seems to have a lot of enthusiasm for type 1. With numbers down across the board, where can we find more Jason Fords?

-end aside on Jason Ford

G1: So, what can I say. He plays a wicked early needle. Then before I can recover he plays crypt (I think – may have been relic). I no longer have outs, and die quickly to tarmo beats.

G2: I sideboard epic. I leave out contagions, and bring in chains, needles, charms (I’m worried about leyline), darkblast (I’m worried about dark confidant, which I’m not even sure he is playing), and gemstones to cast them. All this is for naught as he mull’s to three, and concedes to an obv quick start on my part.

G3: He draws 7, and then I think goes to 6. Either way he draws nuts. He is shouting for his friends to come and look at his hand because its so good. Crap. I keep my 7 decent cards and say go ahead. T1 Jason goes crypt, and relic. T2 he tosses out recall and other goodness (at some point in time he ingot chewers a needle). Yea, that’s all she wrote. I fight the good fight, and force a situation where it’s just barely possible to win if Jason blows relic instead of crypt, but it doesn’t get there.

He relics a full graveyard. In resp I grudge a crypt, and heartbreakingly Jason forces the grudge. I have no graveyard, and don’t have enough cards to fight though crypt AND reload again. We play it out, and I quickly die to tarmo beats.

Gee-gee.

So I finish somewhere in the 5-8, get my entry fee back, and set off into the wild blue yonder. It felt good. Top 8 wasn’t to shabby, and I got my money back so that was cool. Props to Dan and Sara for driving me from NH, and props to Craig for not making me play it out (even if I think I would have won :-p). It was good to see Speed-a-lish-ous Outlaw, and the ever chipper TOOL. Ray as always put on a great event, and a big thanks to my opponents for being friendly and good sports.

Slops to Travis who didn’t stay for day 2, but big props to his War Mammoth
(p.p.s. unban travis … wait … nvrmind)

Quick personal note:

So I’m leaving for Graduate School in August. After not going to College of Charleston for Marine Bio right after I got out of school, and not going again to school in Miami for Law the year after, I finally bit the bullet and accepted an invitation to Texas A&M for international policy, security, and economics. Should be fun. That being said, I’m really going to miss NE magic. Its been a fun 6 years, and I’ve meet all kinds of really amazing people. The community has been great, and I’m going to try and play as much as I can these last few months before I leave in early August.

To all of you that I already know, we need to hang out more. To all of you that may not know me, come say hi if you ever see me at an event, I love to meet new people. And to anyone who lives in Tx, know of any type 1 near college station?

Peace and Love Homies, peace and love.