Bloodghasted Ichorid Primer- Looking to the future

[unixtreme]

Hey there. I am going to my first tournament this weekend and I was thinking of bringing dredge. I was curious, what version of dredge is preferred these days? What do people consider the "best" version of dredge? Yep, just looking for some advice before I go to the tournament.

I find the Sharuum dredge the fastest and best right now, the sideboarding strategy has been posted upwards. I would clearly run Nature's Claim from Worldwake in order to get rid of Leyline / Tormod's / Relic of the pro-gamer. And the standard 4x Chain of vapor, in adition to an alternative win condition to Sharuum to make room to all the side.

[meadbert]

4 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Fatestitcher

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Bridge From Below
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
3 Sharuum The Hegemon
2 Altar of Dementia

sideboard:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Darkblast
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Eternal Witness (Gets back Claim/Chain Bazaar or even Lotus in case of Platz etc)

I would probably run something like above.
Nature's Claim means that the rainbow lands just got better so those edge out Coliseum.
Rainbow lands make Darkblast good again.  Also, since Jailer is not hit by Claim, Darkblast will be more important.
A token Dakmor Salvage might make sense.  Angel of Despair might make sense, but in general I prefer Witness.

[Mantis]

Meadbert: I like your mainboard and its close to my build. That said I like to have a Dakmor Salvage and I am trying 2 copies of Loam as they can theoretically answer Wasteland on Bazaar in conjunction with Salvage as Stax and Fish are huge metagame players over here.

As far as the sideboard goes; Why Darkblast? Fow and Unmask answer Jailer just as well and we must ask ourselves, is Jailer really our biggest issue? Its slow, unless paired with a Mox and we can Therapy it. A question on our team boards was; is FoW still worthwhile without Echoing Truth, I guess your answer is no. Last question: What is your standard boarding plan?

[meadbert]

Darkblast has a lot of synergy with this deck in general.
The two most obvious uses are to Dredge it and to ping Jailers.

Pinging Welder and Bob is also nice.

Where Darkblast can be really good is against Wasteland.  Basically you can Darkblast your own Bloodghasts to trigger Bridge and then ideally bring back Bloodghast if you have either another Rainbow land or if your first was Undiscovered Paradise.

As far as Life from the Loam goes, I would rather have Petrified Field.  Field functions sort of like Undiscovered Paradise.  You always get to land hits off it and if you want to you can use one Field to get another indefinitely.  Life from the Loam assumes you already have 2 mana in play so getting the mana is not important.

Generally I board out 9 Sharuum Engine (Lotus, LED, 3xSharuum, 2xAltar, 2xDread Return)
Then I ditch 2 Fatestitchers and a total of 4 Thugs and Imps.

By bringing in 4 Darkblasts the number of Dredgers has actaully not changed.

I am really not sure about Witness.  There are strong arguments for putting something like Wispmare there instead.  Sometimes you do really want to hit an Oath and Wispmare is Leyline removal #9.
One weakness of dropping the Echoing Truths is that Chalice@1 becomes terrifying again.
Wispmare is an answer there, but with no tutors 1 answer does not matter much.
I do not know how the Juggernaught of Resistance will shake up the meta, but if Chalice@1 + Leyline starts to show up too much I would be inclined to drop to 3 Darkblast and try to work in 2 or 3 Wispmares.

[Gambit]

I'd like some reasons why the Sharuum engine is better than Iona, or FKZ or Sphinx of lost truths? It seems to me the sharuum engine usually wins the turn you cast dread return, but  how many games have you lost where dread return resolved no matter the target? If you are dread returning, you've already stripped their hand of anything relevant and will swing for lethal next turn. Yes, it's nice to win the same turn, but it seems some disruption would be better suited in those extra slots the alters, lotus, and led take up (although lotus & led both seem good in their own way). I'm starting to wonder if d-returning a ggtroll is enough, which would leave a bunch of slots open for maindeck leylines, chalices, chain of vapors, unmasks, whatever.... this post changed a little as I was typing it. Thoughts?

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I'd like some reasons why the Sharuum engine is better than Iona, or FKZ or Sphinx of lost truths? It seems to me the sharuum engine usually wins the turn you cast dread return, but  how many games have you lost where dread return resolved no matter the target? If you are dread returning, you've already stripped their hand of anything relevant and will swing for lethal next turn. Yes, it's nice to win the same turn, but it seems some disruption would be better suited in those extra slots the alters, lotus, and led take up (although lotus & led both seem good in their own way). I'm starting to wonder if d-returning a ggtroll is enough, which would leave a bunch of slots open for maindeck leylines, chalices, chain of vapors, unmasks, whatever.... this post changed a little as I was typing it. Thoughts?

Along the same lines as this, now that Bloodghast is the creature of choice has anyone tried creating a sideboard that changes you to be not graveyard dependant in games 2/3? The original Ichorid was forced to run cards like Ichorid and Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul that were basically useless without the graveyard. However, now with Bloodghast can't you remove a bunch of overkill like the 9 card Sharuum engine and just tweak the maindeck to be pure aggro-control game 2 if necessary? I mean it won't be some amazing new deck but it does make a large part of their deck useless. Even boarding in stuff like Sadistic Sacrament and Rituals should lead to an instant game 2 win against decks like Oath/Tezz that will sideboard out all their counterspells except maybe FoW. Just throwing this out there:

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Black Lotus

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Fatestitcher

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Bridge From Below
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba

2 Dread Return
1 Iona/Sphinx/Sadistic Hypnotist

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chalice of the Void

Sideboard
4 Nature's Claim
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Vampiric Tutor

I'm so far off being a dredge expert that I could just be spewing out a horrible idea but if people in your area are overboarding against dredge this may let you keep playing it. Unless of course the current suggested sideboard is consistant enough to actually fight through a lot of hate. Don't look at the actual list as anything other than a general suggestion maybe somebody better than me could decide whether this idea is worth seriously exploring. I mean I think we can all agree that "Ichorid" has a ridiculous game 1 win percentage. Maybe by dropping some more game 1 speed like fatestitcher you could pack in even more disruption via Unmask/Duress and create a beast of a hybrid deck?

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I'd like some reasons why the Sharuum engine is better than Iona, or FKZ or Sphinx of lost truths? It seems to me the sharuum engine usually wins the turn you cast dread return, but  how many games have you lost where dread return resolved no matter the target? If you are dread returning, you've already stripped their hand of anything relevant and will swing for lethal next turn. Yes, it's nice to win the same turn, but it seems some disruption would be better suited in those extra slots the alters, lotus, and led take up (although lotus & led both seem good in their own way). I'm starting to wonder if d-returning a ggtroll is enough, which would leave a bunch of slots open for maindeck leylines, chalices, chain of vapors, unmasks, whatever.... this post changed a little as I was typing it. Thoughts?

Short answer: against most decks, you don't need disruption if you win on Turn 2.  The long answer by Meadbert (reading earlier in the thread is tech):

This is in reference to the "manaless" version.

I still have trouble understanding the Sharuum engine.  With possessed portal and altar of dementia it eats up 5-7 slots (assuming you'd drop LED as well).  How is this better than running Iona or Hypnotist with more disruption - i.e Chalice/Leyline/Unmask?  Infinite zombies are cool and all, but rarely necessary and far less interesting without Flamekin Zealot.  By increasing the land count you can probably put in duress/thoughtseize (especially if you really believe that bloodghast replaces Ichy).  Plus, if you're typically going off turn 2 how often is cephalid coliseum relavent, especially since you're not running breakthrough/careful study? 

Regarding Sharuum Engine vs More Disruption:
This is an excellent question!  I was long a fan of more disruption, but not always.  When I choose a Dread Return package I do not choose that which fits my play style.  Instead I choose that which gives me the best chance to win.  Before Bridge from Below and Narcomoeba were printed I ran Dragon Breath and Sutured Ghoul because I wanted the win now effect against Combo and Gifts.  I am and always have been a fan of "win now" in type 1 because decks are so powerful.  Once Bridge was printed I saw that Bridge was a fast clock on its own and I figured that clogging up the deck with a large Dread Return package was win more since it allowed a turn 3 win when Bridges would win by turn 4 anyway and sometimes turn 3.  Going for the occasional turn 2 win with Zealot was not worth sacrificing the disruption.  What I most wanted out of my Dread Return package was more disruption thus I ran Sundering Titan and Ancestor's Chosen.  Now that Bloodghast has drastically sped up Dredge I think this has changed.  Being able to win ~75% of the time on turn 2 versus waiting till turn 3 is enough reason to drop 2 pieces of disruption to add the Altar of Dementias.  Also, Altar is good in some surprising scenarios.  It is common to get hit with Wasteland on turn 1.  Then you might bring out 3 creatures on turn 2 anyway thanks to Fatestitchers, Bloodghasts and Narcomoebas.  Dread Return Sharuum to get Altar you can now mill about 15 cards off the top of your library.  Hit another Dread return and Sharuum and you just win.  I get a lot of turn 2 and turn 3 wins after having Bazaar wasted on turn 1 because of Altar that I never would have had without that engine.  Hypnotist could still disrupt like crazy in that spot so it would not be bad, but it does not feed and replace the Bazaar/Dredge engine like Altar.  Iona would be pretty weak in that spot.
The reason I say you are dropping 2 pieces of disruption is that if I were to run Hypnotists I would still run 3 Dread Returns and 3 Targets.  I would also run LED and probably put maybe not Lotus.  Even if I would not run Lotus I would certainly not say it hurts the deck in any significant way.  The only 2 "win more" cards are the 2 Altars of Dementia.  (Note that I run 2 Altars, but a 1-1 split between Altar and Portal is strong to dodge Platinum Angel.)

I usually board out Sharuum, but when I keep him it is nice that he pitches to both Force of Will and Unmask.

Hypnotist is good and in my opinion better than Iona, but both suffer from the same problem which is what happens if your opponent already Vamp/Imp Sealed for the Vault Key combo?  Hypnotist can empty a hand, but opponents open with turn 1 Mox, Land, Key, Imp for Vault reasonably frequently.  I can empty their hand, but they still win turn 3.  If they had a second Mox or if their Mox was Mana Crypt they win turn 2 (or lose to Mana Crypt)

Regarding Duress and Thoughtseize:  I see no benefit to adding these.  My guess is your idea was to forgo the turn 2 win and instead replace that with an extra Duress or Thoughtseize on turn 2 if you were lucky enough to have one in hand?  The other possibility is to forgo your turn 1 Bazaar drop to open with Duress and slow down the whole engine a turn to then win on turn 4.  This is worse than winning on turn 2.

[Gambit]

I guess my issue is that you're going to win game 1 anyway, winning on turn 2 is irrelevant because after therapying them a few times on turn 2 they aren't going to win their one turn of topdecking 99% of the time. Having more disruption maindeck, say chain of vapors and leylines allow for more slots in the sideboard.

[unixtreme]

I guess my issue is that you're going to win game 1 anyway, winning on turn 2 is irrelevant because after therapying them a few times on turn 2 they aren't going to win their one turn of topdecking 99% of the time. Having more disruption maindeck, say chain of vapors and leylines allow for more slots in the sideboard.

This is an standarized thought, but not entirelly true. Fish can easilly win if he opens stifles and wastes bazaar in a regular Ichorid deck, plus Jötun Grunt could make it impossible to dredge.

[Lemnear]

I guess my issue is that you're going to win game 1 anyway, winning on turn 2 is irrelevant because after therapying them a few times on turn 2 they aren't going to win their one turn of topdecking 99% of the time. Having more disruption maindeck, say chain of vapors and leylines allow for more slots in the sideboard.

If you recall meadberts and my posted list you'll see that we're running 10 non-bazaar lands main so you have a stong mainboard and lots of space in the sb. Since nature's claim is an option in sb instead of some aditional bounce switshing the maindeck lands to 5c is not a big deal. In fact you have 15 Sb slots free to fill with protection ... if you pack 1 or 2 playsets main to have more space in SB for disruption I have to ask you, what you want so board out for it? switching hate for more efficient hate isn't too hot.

You have to understand that meadbert and I obviousy not talking about the favorable game 1 but about the games 2 and 3. Being able to kill my opponent on turn 2 in game 2 is a big thread to anyone. they are forced to mull into fast hate and weaker hands. standard ichorid-list are packed in these games with so many hate that their kill-turn is warped to turn 6 and beyond having an inconsistend deck after boarding.

So if your opponent mulls aggressivly into a leyline, you drop one of your lands, chain, claim, etc. it and win on spot without serious crippling your md. I suggest some fatestitcher and up to 2 DR as boarding-slots

[BruiZar]

Wind Zendikon needs to be evaluated for the deck. It gives bazaar protection from strip, gives you a creature to sack for dread return and can recurr a Gemstone Mine with zero counters. It also gives you a way to cheat landfall with Gemstone Mine or stripped bazaar to get bloodghasts back.

[unixtreme]

Wind Zendikon needs to be evaluated for the deck. It gives bazaar protection from strip, gives you a creature to sack for dread return and can recurr a Gemstone Mine with zero counters. It also gives you a way to cheat landfall with Gemstone Mine or stripped bazaar to get bloodghasts back.

I'll test it, but im not convinced about it, plus im more scared about Ravenous Trap than land hate : /

[Razvan]

Sideboard
4 Nature's Claim
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Vampiric Tutor

Well, one of the problems with putting Dark Confidant is that you will get hurt a lot by some of the dredgers. Hitting a Grave-Troll is not nice.

Transformational sideboards have been tried before, but the issue is that you will turn into a very sub-par aggro deck. Yes, they will have useless cards in their MD, but you will have FAR more useless cards, and they will quickly realize this and out-pace you by letting their deck win, instead of trying to get more cards to lock you out.

Again, I recall Jerry's Oath sideboard list. But I actually do like this line of reasoning, punishing people for over-sideboarding against Ichorid.

[meadbert]

The problem with using Wind Zendikon is the same as using Stifle.
Either you have to skip playing Bazaar on turn 1 to drop a blue source or you have to play Bazaar on turn 1 without Zendikon in which case they will just Waste it right away.

[Ravager Sam]

With my promotion application denied, here's part of the article I had written, which is a TR from a month and a half ago when I won a mox pearl:

Round One -> My friend playing the aforementioned R/G Anti-Meta deck.  It just so happens that out of 64 people, I am paired with one of my friends.  The match is a little closer than I originally thought, but Sharuum is too fast for him.  Did I mention he has no dredge sideboard hate?  He actually doesn’t need it against normal dredge decks, he beat dredge once, because Magus of the Moon + Mogg Fanatic can easily lock them down.  Don’t easily discount the power of this deck, my friend went 4-2.

Round Two -> Johnathan playing Stax.  Game one went off without a hitch -> I do my thing on turn 2.  Game 2 I land serenity and it’s over a couple turns later.  This was the match I 5-for-1ed with Serenity nailing a Mox, Chalice @ 1, Tormod’s Crypt, Triskelion, and Arcbound Ravager.

Round Three -> Josh playing fish.  Game one was the usual turn two kill.  I’m going to stop talking about game 1 now because it was the same for the entire tournament.  Game 2 I was able to attack with a narcomoeba and then a bloodghast to a mere two life before he killed me.  I was under leyline the whole time, didn’t draw anti-hate, hardcasted said ghast and narcomoeba, and he almost killed himself with dark confidant.  Game 3 he submitted to me a 62 card deck and 13 card sideboard, and got a game loss.  I’m not sure if he changed anything from game 2 to game 3, so game 2 might have been inherently flawed.

Round Four -> Roman playing Stax.  I didn’t draw a bazaar during game two, but was able to win because of ancestral recall.  He had a t0 leyline of the void and I had a t1 chain of vapor.  On my turn 2, I main-phase casted Ancestral Recall to pitch a golgari grave-troll and something else in the discard phase.  He recast leyline on turn 2 and I had the force of will for it.  A few turns later and the game was over.  I drew my next two rounds to get 4th seed in top 8: the highest of any person with 14 points.

Top 8 -> Dom playing Tezz.  I don’t really remember this game because it was pretty quick.  I answered his one hate card and in two turns brought him from 20 to 15, and then from 15 to 0.

Top 4 -> Rob playing Tezz.  This was my most entertaining matchup of the day.  I was able to bring him to 4 in game two before he was able to go infinite with vault key and attack me for two every turn with jailer in the process.  Game three was EPIC.  He extirpated me twice (hitting force of will and bridge from below), pseudo-extirpated me by blocking a zombie with a dark confidant, to remove my bridges, and used a tormod’s crypt once.  Despite all this, I was able to get out a couple zombie tokens and gradually lower his life total.  On the final turn, he was at three life and tinkered up an Akroma-Sphinx.  All I had out was a zombie token, so I unearthed 2 fatestitchers, one to tap the Sphinx, and one to help swing for lethal.

Top 2 -> T0 leyline twice = GG.  Did I mention t2 helm twice?
   I talked to Mark a little bit between top 8 and the tournament and he felt I could still afford to cut one more golgari thug, but the problem is that there aren’t many one-ofs that I could feasibly put in its place -> the first thing I would do is probably add a main deck Dakmor Salvage in its place -> those proved to be quite useful.  As far as the board is concerned, I would definitely take out the Angel of Despair and Iona in favor of a 4th Serenity + something else.  He felt Greater Gargadons might have a place in the dredge sideboard (versus oath) but it’s something I would certainly want to test out, especially with my version of Dredge – one that is vastly different from his.             

[Adan]

How could a mordern Sideboard look like? The main problem I experienced was somehow that everyone is now running Ravenous Traps and Jailers altogether with Needles against Dredge and this is somehow the hardest combination to deal with in view of hate, Ravenous Trap is pretty easy to run into and Jailers require you to play a good amount of Darkblasts.
Needles are handled by either Nature's Claim or Ancient Grudge.

Serenity seems to be interesting, however, I can't imagine to resolve one against Stax/MUD as they are playing 13 Spheres plus Wastelands.

So, the main issue is: How to persist against Ravenous Trap? I play maindeck Unmasks, I guess I must not board them out ever again. So what about Iona?

edit: By the way, In the Sharuum Dredge build, what would be an alternative for the Black Lotus, a Lotus Petal?

[Neonico]

Either LED and lotus petal are good cards if you don't get black lotus.

[Adan]

Either LED and lotus petal are good cards if you don't get black lotus.

The list already runs a LED, I can't run a 2nd one unfortunately. K, then I'll try the Lotus Petal.

[meadbert]

Seat of the Synod is better than Lotus Petal.  It is an artifact that Sharuum can fetch.  It produces  , and it has one advantage over Lotus which is that it triggers Landfall!

[Adan]

Seat of the Synod is better than Lotus Petal.  It is an artifact that Sharuum can fetch.  It produces  , and it has one advantage over Lotus which is that it triggers Landfall!

Yes, I was pretty stupid on that one, I just thought that I might simply play another Gemstone Mine in place of the Lotus for more Fatetsitcher-Bloodghast and sideboardcards abuse.
You usually board out the Lotus and the LED for lands anyway with your current SB, right?

I think I might test Sharuum Dredge because it seems to be a bit more persistent against Wasteland than my current Dredgelist since it can still spawn a decent amount of creatures to cast DR on Sharuum which is a 5/5 flying clock himself and he either gets a Altar to fuel myself or a Posessed Portal which stax'es the opp AND fuels myself at the same time thanks to the replacement-effect issue which allows me to basically DDD when Portal is out while the opponent can't do much.

I'm just a bit worried about Extirpate, I've been losing against that card on the last tournament in combination with Extirpate from time to time, how do you deal with that? With your current SB, it seems that you are basically helpless against these cards. I also don't see how you can circumvent them properly without slowing yourself down for hundreds of turns.

[Valorale]

Seat of the Synod is better than Lotus Petal.  It is an artifact that Sharuum can fetch.  It produces  , and it has one advantage over Lotus which is that it triggers Landfall!

Being able to trigger the bloodghast landfall ability is nice in a pinch, but I find that is win-more. If youre in a position where youre sac'ing 3 creatures to bring back Sharuum then youre probably already in really good shape here and could likely cast dread return again if needed off the zombie tokens off the bridge that will likely be in the yard instead of more bloodghast. I typically find myself on T2 when goldfishing .. wishing that I had some artifact mana to kick off fatestitcher to bazaar again before dropping a land for my turn. Plus depending on whether you keep it in the deck or not post-board, it can be nice to drop Bazaar, Petal, do a Claim/Chain at the end of their turn on the inevitable Leyline, bazaar and then go off next turn.

[Neonico]

That's allmost allways right, except when you need to win in the turn. fatesticher is your only option there if you miss a combo part in the graveyard so having some blue mana thtat bring back BLoodghasts for a second dread return is a good optimisation.

[Adan]

That's allmost allways right, except when you need to win in the turn. fatesticher is your only option there if you miss a combo part in the graveyard so having some blue mana thtat bring back BLoodghasts for a second dread return is a good optimisation.

You will most likely get Zombies when you DR Sharuum plus you can unearth multiple Fatestitchers to have DR-fodder and you can also hit Moebas. Sam Berse also mentioned that Seat of the Synod was pretty dead all the time.

[BruiZar]

I agree with Valorale. You want explosive turn ones and artifact mana helps you do that. I think the better discussion is Mox Sapphire versus Lotus Petal. Seat of the Synod interferes with your other land drops and Paradise + Gemstone Mine + City Of Brass is superior to Seat of the Synod. There are more times that I wish I had land drop + artifact mana to fuel an explosive stitcher activation than times where I wish I could Sharuum a Landfall trigger.

Off topic: I believe a build with 4x Burning Inquiry 1x Ancestral Recall should be tested. Burning Inquiry is a better and cheaper breakthrough because it doesn't molest your hand completely. It's also much better on the first turn when you don't have a dredger in the yard yet. I know people will dislike the randomness of Burning Inquiry but I don't think that matters much as long as you keep sufficient dredgers in the deck. It all boils down to statistics and the cards that you dredge into are random too (unless you're
playing goblin recruiter or a grand flash of insight). Burning Inquiry serves as a mini-timetwister in that it can molest your opponents hand very well. Opening Game 3 with an inquiry and discarding your opponents dredge hate can steal that all important final game. If you think about it, Burning Inquiry is not symmetrical at all because your deck is designed to use the graveyard when your opponents graveyard is only good for Yawgmoths Will or maybe welder.

[BruiZar]

That's allmost allways right, except when you need to win in the turn. fatesticher is your only option there if you miss a combo part in the graveyard so having some blue mana thtat bring back BLoodghasts for a second dread return is a good optimisation.

Why not run a third gemstone mine? I still don't see why you would want artifact land. I think people are confused thinking that artifact+land has synergy in a deck that uses landfall and artifact recursion through sharuum.

[meadbert]

Bruizar has a good point.  Seat was "Win More" enough that I pulled it out for Oboro #2 back when I just ran blue.  Now that Rainbow lands have an added advantage Gemstone Mines might make more sense.  I do not have any experiencing testing the main deck without Lotus so I do not have a good sense of how often this shows up.  Given that you will be boarding out Seat post board, Gemstone Mine seems like it is the better option.

The other option is actually to run Gilded Lotus simply as a Sharuum target.  Basically test and see what works out best for you.

[Neonico]

Petal and seat of synod help your mana when you have them in hand, gilded lotus is pure combo card.

[Ravager Sam]

It seems like two very important things are being forgotten:

1- The deck wins on t2 95% of the time game 1.  Thus, seat of the synod is useless.
2- The sharuum engine gets boarded out for game 2 and 3.  Thus, seat of the synod is useless.

A case can certainly be made for Oboro, however.

[Neonico]

No it'sd not....

I also build my deck and manabase with the G2 and 3 in mind.
You boarding out LED because it' not a mana source for the post sideboard games, but i wouldn't board out lotus petal as it helps me to cast my anti-hate cards.

Also, i try to get as much way to exhume fatesticher back as possible, and that for 2 reasons :
 - because it happens that you miss one of the combo part in your graveyard and you have to find it to win on the spot (I just want to say that i play only 1 altar of dementia as a finisher, i prefer to have a Land/Mana artefact instead of the 2nd one or the possessed portal just because portal/2nd altar do nothing game 2 and 3).
 - Being able to flashback a bunch of cabal therapies if i can't win on the spot.
And for both reason, being able to exhume fatesticher is important.

It doesn't happen really often, but i prefer to build my maindeck with post sideboard games in mind, and optimise my chances to win on the spot on game 1. It has allready been revelant for me in tournaments in situations such as oath turn one on the draw, Turn 1 metalworker with staff in hand, Turbo vault/key, ...

[BruiZar]

I just wanted to add this to the thread before it slips my mind forever. Although suboptimal now, Sword of the Ages could be a relevant Sharuum target in the future should you face denial for Akromas memorial (moat/fog/chant effects) and denial for altar of dementia (Gaea's Blessing). Fatestitcher can untap it to win now, but you will have to pass the turn if you can't get a blue mana and a stitcher in the yard, but its still a tool that must be on the radar for dredge builders. Its also a colorless damage source. Unfortunately, still hosed by Null Rod