pointofinfo
08-26-2009, 05:11 AM
Friday evening:
I, Matt Strunin, pick up my buddy Michael and we hit FNM. We draft, and I get 4th. I score a promo foil Malfegor. Yeah. It's like that. That dude is huge.
Saturday:
The two of us join forces once again and we drive out to Frank & Son's Collectible Show out in City of Nothing-But-Industry and we drop mad kash in the most urban, street-wise way one might. After some hard bargaining and selling away most of my precious binder's precious few playables. Now it's back to the EDH drawing board for that. Anyway, we come away with everything that we need and start testing back in the Valley. Like, totally freak me out! Mike's Landstill build took 1 game one of 7. He was talked out being nervous thanks to a Magical intervention.
Sunday:
The big day. I drop some more dough on new KMC sleeves...wow. Sorry Ultra Pro, but KMC makes 'em like you used to. I find "scouting" to be a little sketchy and un-fun, so I refrain and resign myself to knowing only a few other decks in the room. While helping out a newer player with his deck and checking Mike's list like I'm Santa Claus, I finally decide on a sideboard, expecting some Dredge mirror and Zoo/Goyf Burn, with the tourney being pretty diverse. The top prize was (essentially) 4x Goyf, so a number of players were abuzz about them. I end up playing a slightly unconventional list for financial reasons (Lion's Eye-Diamond = $30) and pure preference:
Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
3 Unmask
Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below
Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Cephalid Sage
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
Sideboard
1 Unmask
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Darkblast
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Mindslicer
1 Disrupt
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Foil Promo Malfegor
I was convinced my numbers were sexier than Thirteen making out with Seven of Nine.
Of course, I didn't turn out to be entirely wrong. We had somewhere around 60% Force of Will decks.
4 Dread Returns - I like Dread Return. It wins games. Other folks insist on 3 as a maximum, but I have the luxury of 4 thanks to having six less cards (4x LED, 2x Deep Analysis). In match-ups where it is appropriate, I went down to 3 after boarding.
3 Cephalid Sages - As much as I like other cards, Sage really gets to me. I have never lost a game where I successfully used its ability. As such, I decided that I wanted 3, though that later proved to be a mistake. I would have preferred the Tarnished Citadel (financial), Tireless Tribe, or Mindslicer that I considered.
The Lands - I never hit the Putrid Imp/Cephalid Coliseum hand, but I see why many choose to use Lotus Petals for additional consistency. Having the Cephalid Coliseums allowed me to discard when all else was going terribly, like in my first match.
3 Unmask - Mike got me the full playset the day before when I was content to just run another land, the fourth Thug, and Mindslicer. Instead, I got to make a hugely disruptive first turn play against Belcher in my second match.
SB choices:
1 Malfegor - This was more of a gentleman's agreement card, but I decided that I needed another discard outlet against aggro. I never faced a straight-forward aggro deck (for more than a few minutes), so it never came in. It's probably awful, but I do enjoy it in theory. I had formerly run Curfew to deal with Progenitus, but that idea was supplanted when better choices came up. Like Malfegor. Yeah.
2 Chalice of the Void - Tormod's Crypt enables stealing of games, so I ran these lest I be on the play in game three (usually losing game 2 before discovering the specifics of my opponent's hate).
1 Darkblast - There were a few Survival and Rock decks, so I'm not entirely down on this choice. There was also an Staff of Domination Elf Combo deck around the low tables, so I'm not down on this choice, it just never came in except for the Dredge mirror.
1 Empyrial Archangel - I prefer this slightly to Platinum Angel, which can be burnt, Swords'd'd, or Exiled away. In addition, the three decks I knew were Zoo, Belcher, and Landstill, sooooo...
1 Mindslicer - I found my builds to not need Sadistic Hypnotist, so I cut him. And he was foil, so you know it was tough. I never Dread Returned the Mindslicer because removing it to Ichorid was just better at the time. As such, I wouldn't discredit him. His effect is incredibly powerful against a combo or control deck, especially if you can get it out then dead again in a single turn. In my Lackey testing, I did not lose a control match--even with Force of Will in my opponent's hand--when Mindslicer made it out.
1 Ancestor's Chosen - Like my gracious Dredge mirror opponent said, "That's a really good card here."
1 Chain of Vapor - I saw no Leylines, I heard no Leylines, and nobody bought Leylines when I was at the counter. I played only one Chain in case of, say, Platinum Angel and Ichorid. See match three.
1 Xantid Swarm - I felt like this was better than another Chain because I had the Force of Will fear. I only sided it in twice and saw it zeroce.
1 Disrupt - Dredge mirror is actually pretty good here, but mostly it's for the opponent who taps out, then plays a Force. It resolved twice against Mike and always dredged 6. That was pretty hot. Also, the flavor text is sweet on the Weatherlight version.
Match 1: UGr Canadian Threshold
Game one is quite silly. I mulligan, then pop out a Putrid Imp. There isn't any dredging going on. Turn after turn. After turn. Eventually, he hits threshold and his Nimble Mongooses are too much for my meager hard-cast Narcomoebas and I fold. The worst part is un-blanking Spell Snare!
Sideboarding includes bringing in Mindslicer, a few Needles and the two Chalices, Disrupt, Xantid, and Unmask, removing Thugs, two lands, Sage, and FKZ
Game two is essentially the same. I manage to dredge four off of a single Thug, then never dredge again. Tarmogoyf is a 5/6 machine and kills me with no fight. My opponent and I are impressed by my inability to dredge cards until it was far too late.
0-1 // 0-2
Match 2: Belcher
I win the die-roll. 1-0!
But seriously, it's basically impossible to lose game one with my start: Unmask taking ESG, Therapy taking 2 LED, then Imp-Troll next turn. I dredge up some aggro and resolve a Sage about 3 turns in. I make a bunch of Dave Kendall crab-horse-dragon zombie tokens (as a side note, WTH?) and FKZ lights their fire.
Game 2 is a longer affair. I start out poorly, taking two trips to Paris with still no land. I have nothing when I draw, which basically means I'm dead. Patrick, my opponent and gaming pal through Mike, makes a turn one Belcher and a turn two activation.
Game 3 is long and drawn-out...for two decks theoretically goldfishing against each other. Patrick has nothing for me, but I have the full complement of Chalice, Pithing Needle, Disrupt, Chain, Archangel, Unmask, and Mindslicer. 11 cards. How can I lose? I lay down turn 1 and 2 Needles on Belcher and a discard spell. Patrick smirks, which I take as a silent confirmation that he has Shattering Spree all set. Then I start dying. My dredges are something like, 10 lands, 3 Breakthroughs, and some irrelevant hate. Wowch. My stumbling allows him to build all but the necessary amount of red to Wish for Shattering Spree and kill both of my Needles. For three turns, all I had to do was draw a Pithing Needle or a land to play my Chalice on one. That would have required another red mana from Patrick, and thus buying me another few turns. Eventually, though, he drew it, Land Granted his Taiga and Bayou, and shot me in the face for a zillion. I flip the top card -- which is against my personal policy of not inviting anger toward myself -- and, as if a heavenly force was punishing me, I saw Pete Venters art.
0-2 // 1-4
Match 3: LEDredge
I win the die roll and elect to play first. I've heard that's good.
Game 1 I open with Unmask. My opponent coolly lays down his opening seven. I take a Dread Return and sigh. My opponent just draws and passes. Had I Unmasked myself, I could have discarded Troll and gone off faster. Someone had told me this fellow was playing Dredge, but I really didn't want that to affect my play because I'm not the type of person to accept a piece of info like that. Oh, well. My integrity (which some in the forums will regard as stupidity or some derivative thereof) made that poor play for me and I never recovered. He eventually was able to throw his hand down and flashback a Deep Analysis.
Game 2 was a terrible one. My dredges were somehow worse than in my first match. There were more of them to be sure, but it was awful watching my deck crap out on me. I was failing my twenty dollar entry fee. If only I had the cash to play a Force of Will deck. I snapped out of that line of thinking quickly and resumed laughing at myself. At this point, I was in full-on fun mode. We were both having a good time along with a spectator laughing at my awful dredges and hard-cast Narcomoebas. Sweet, flying Man-O'-War. By the time he recurred a bunch of Ickies and had a Platinum Angel, it was game over. I saw none of my DR targets and only drew Disrupt after he'd gotten to two lands. Strunin out!
0-3 // 1-6
Match 4: Teneb and Friends
I am playing against a young man with a casual, artifact creature-based five-color green deck. His win con was me having 5 copies of Bridge.
1-3 // 3-6
Match 5: Jack with Zoo
Jack is a KW regular piloting a Zoo build and expressed disappointment about having to play my deck. As he expected, I goldfished but for him Bolting a Kird Ape to nix a Bridge or two. Mid-way through my working out the math, he signed the slip. He responded in the negative when I inquired as to sideboard hate. My only aggro match for the day ended before my sideboard stuff could even come in.
2-3 // 5-6
Match 6: '97 Control
Shard Phoenix, Cunning Wish, Force, etc. My opponent was a mighty fine guy and a great sport, returning to the game with his UR control deck. He explained that it started in 1997 and grew from there. We traded a few references to cards of older eras in between me trying to be as clear as I could with my silly deck. He had a few counterspells and I pointed him toward the spells to counter. At one point in game two he needed a fifth land to cast Shard Phoenix and smack me around, but it didn't come and I won the following turn.
3-3 // 7-6
So, what have I learned?
*2 Sages. The third got sided out so often that it was like having a misregistered MTGO draft deck.
*3 Unmasks are excellent. Sometimes. Their use can be both extremely disruptive (taking Force), constructive (discarding your own guy), or just down right terrible (Dredge mirror). Overall, the fourth Unmask was amazing in the matchups where I needed it.
*I have learned how to use my discard spells more effectively. I used Cabal Therapy on my opponents naming Force way more than I should have. I discovered that not playing Force of Will myself led to fearing the Might of the Force. I only played against one Daze deck, yet I should have given those two spells equal weight in that matchup when Daze was likely the better candidate for Cabal Therapy. Just like Jon Finkel says you can't play Survival with proxies because you need the feel, you must be in the present, playing against a live opponent for Unmask and Therapy to be at maximum efficiency.
*Much in the same way that I had to learn when to bet and how much in poker and when to put another counter on Smokestack, I had to learn what to mulligan with this deck. I basically came up with the formula, "If you ask yourself how it's going to go, the answer is 'poorly'."
Moreover, the way the cookie crumbled turned out to result in bad dredge shenanigans and 50-50 matchups followed by three easy wins. Going through the motions with this deck is really unfun for folks at the lower tables, and I genuinely feel sorry about that. I didn't want to be at those tables playing against Scuttlemutt. What I've learned about dredge is that it isn't really the same deck without Bazaar. It isn't so much a combo deck but really a system deck, much like Eggs. But I'll leave that report for The Mana Drain.
Until next time, Spidey fans...
EDIT:
...And it's next time. After taking a few suggestions and testing further, I have realized that Tribe is crazy good. My new list reflects the change in consistency it creates. I'll list only the relevant (read: changed) numbers. I may also add the one Tarnished Citadel at some point, but I wouldn't dare cut the second Sage despite some recommendations.
3 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return (-1)
1 Flame-Kin Zealot (-1)
2 Cephalid Sage (+1)
This has made the deck incredibly consistent compared to my ex-version. I have reduced my mulligan rate from about once per match to once per two matches, which is saying a lot for such a jank-tastic deck like Legacy Icky.
My sideboard still isn't tuned, so feel free to throw things out. I've considered the following:
-Platinum Angel
- Keeping Mindslicer (more so than Hypnotist as he is sometimes just a Mind Rot. A terrible, terrible Mind Rot. And keep in mind, I have a shiny Hypnotist. A shiny one, and I still think Mindslicer is better.)
-Wispmare / Emerald Charm (if I think people are playing Leyline or Moat.)
-Chalice of the Void (Because Pithing Needle doesn't always get there by itself.)
-More Chain of Vapor (to build up tempo, as though such a concept exists for this deck.)
-Pact of Negation (Secret tech?! No. Merely a fleeting thought.)
I've learned quite a deal from my experiences at KnightWare's tourney. First, people really love play-sets of Tarmogoyf. Second, good hands with this deck don't necessarily yield good results due to the randomness of dredging. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to those of you wise enough to be reading this report and not writing it. I now comprehend that as much as you try to control the randomness (like you would with Cascade in standard) through deckbuilding, Ichorid cannot be entirely consistent without the additional tool of Bazaar. Instead, this is a deck that you cannot play as reservedly as I would normally play. In so many words, it's not you, Icky, it's me. I have surmounted my fear of Daze and Force of Will, but I have not learned to channel that aggressiveness through my deck. Now I don't intend to overplay into Tormod's Crypt, but I sense the rare opportunity and challenge a deck like this presents to such an ever-blue player; I must learn to control a match-up from the aggressor's side. This may be the biggest Magical challenge I've come across. Like, worse than the time I had to choose which two pieces of hate I had to give the Villain off her first turn Gifts. Yeah. That happened. Anyway, getting to the warm and fuzzies, I look forward to growing my skills with Ichorid and continually tuning it such that it is as close to Academy brokenness that it can be.
I, Matt Strunin, pick up my buddy Michael and we hit FNM. We draft, and I get 4th. I score a promo foil Malfegor. Yeah. It's like that. That dude is huge.
Saturday:
The two of us join forces once again and we drive out to Frank & Son's Collectible Show out in City of Nothing-But-Industry and we drop mad kash in the most urban, street-wise way one might. After some hard bargaining and selling away most of my precious binder's precious few playables. Now it's back to the EDH drawing board for that. Anyway, we come away with everything that we need and start testing back in the Valley. Like, totally freak me out! Mike's Landstill build took 1 game one of 7. He was talked out being nervous thanks to a Magical intervention.
Sunday:
The big day. I drop some more dough on new KMC sleeves...wow. Sorry Ultra Pro, but KMC makes 'em like you used to. I find "scouting" to be a little sketchy and un-fun, so I refrain and resign myself to knowing only a few other decks in the room. While helping out a newer player with his deck and checking Mike's list like I'm Santa Claus, I finally decide on a sideboard, expecting some Dredge mirror and Zoo/Goyf Burn, with the tourney being pretty diverse. The top prize was (essentially) 4x Goyf, so a number of players were abuzz about them. I end up playing a slightly unconventional list for financial reasons (Lion's Eye-Diamond = $30) and pure preference:
Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
3 Unmask
Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below
Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Cephalid Sage
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
Sideboard
1 Unmask
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Darkblast
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Mindslicer
1 Disrupt
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Foil Promo Malfegor
I was convinced my numbers were sexier than Thirteen making out with Seven of Nine.
Of course, I didn't turn out to be entirely wrong. We had somewhere around 60% Force of Will decks.
4 Dread Returns - I like Dread Return. It wins games. Other folks insist on 3 as a maximum, but I have the luxury of 4 thanks to having six less cards (4x LED, 2x Deep Analysis). In match-ups where it is appropriate, I went down to 3 after boarding.
3 Cephalid Sages - As much as I like other cards, Sage really gets to me. I have never lost a game where I successfully used its ability. As such, I decided that I wanted 3, though that later proved to be a mistake. I would have preferred the Tarnished Citadel (financial), Tireless Tribe, or Mindslicer that I considered.
The Lands - I never hit the Putrid Imp/Cephalid Coliseum hand, but I see why many choose to use Lotus Petals for additional consistency. Having the Cephalid Coliseums allowed me to discard when all else was going terribly, like in my first match.
3 Unmask - Mike got me the full playset the day before when I was content to just run another land, the fourth Thug, and Mindslicer. Instead, I got to make a hugely disruptive first turn play against Belcher in my second match.
SB choices:
1 Malfegor - This was more of a gentleman's agreement card, but I decided that I needed another discard outlet against aggro. I never faced a straight-forward aggro deck (for more than a few minutes), so it never came in. It's probably awful, but I do enjoy it in theory. I had formerly run Curfew to deal with Progenitus, but that idea was supplanted when better choices came up. Like Malfegor. Yeah.
2 Chalice of the Void - Tormod's Crypt enables stealing of games, so I ran these lest I be on the play in game three (usually losing game 2 before discovering the specifics of my opponent's hate).
1 Darkblast - There were a few Survival and Rock decks, so I'm not entirely down on this choice. There was also an Staff of Domination Elf Combo deck around the low tables, so I'm not down on this choice, it just never came in except for the Dredge mirror.
1 Empyrial Archangel - I prefer this slightly to Platinum Angel, which can be burnt, Swords'd'd, or Exiled away. In addition, the three decks I knew were Zoo, Belcher, and Landstill, sooooo...
1 Mindslicer - I found my builds to not need Sadistic Hypnotist, so I cut him. And he was foil, so you know it was tough. I never Dread Returned the Mindslicer because removing it to Ichorid was just better at the time. As such, I wouldn't discredit him. His effect is incredibly powerful against a combo or control deck, especially if you can get it out then dead again in a single turn. In my Lackey testing, I did not lose a control match--even with Force of Will in my opponent's hand--when Mindslicer made it out.
1 Ancestor's Chosen - Like my gracious Dredge mirror opponent said, "That's a really good card here."
1 Chain of Vapor - I saw no Leylines, I heard no Leylines, and nobody bought Leylines when I was at the counter. I played only one Chain in case of, say, Platinum Angel and Ichorid. See match three.
1 Xantid Swarm - I felt like this was better than another Chain because I had the Force of Will fear. I only sided it in twice and saw it zeroce.
1 Disrupt - Dredge mirror is actually pretty good here, but mostly it's for the opponent who taps out, then plays a Force. It resolved twice against Mike and always dredged 6. That was pretty hot. Also, the flavor text is sweet on the Weatherlight version.
Match 1: UGr Canadian Threshold
Game one is quite silly. I mulligan, then pop out a Putrid Imp. There isn't any dredging going on. Turn after turn. After turn. Eventually, he hits threshold and his Nimble Mongooses are too much for my meager hard-cast Narcomoebas and I fold. The worst part is un-blanking Spell Snare!
Sideboarding includes bringing in Mindslicer, a few Needles and the two Chalices, Disrupt, Xantid, and Unmask, removing Thugs, two lands, Sage, and FKZ
Game two is essentially the same. I manage to dredge four off of a single Thug, then never dredge again. Tarmogoyf is a 5/6 machine and kills me with no fight. My opponent and I are impressed by my inability to dredge cards until it was far too late.
0-1 // 0-2
Match 2: Belcher
I win the die-roll. 1-0!
But seriously, it's basically impossible to lose game one with my start: Unmask taking ESG, Therapy taking 2 LED, then Imp-Troll next turn. I dredge up some aggro and resolve a Sage about 3 turns in. I make a bunch of Dave Kendall crab-horse-dragon zombie tokens (as a side note, WTH?) and FKZ lights their fire.
Game 2 is a longer affair. I start out poorly, taking two trips to Paris with still no land. I have nothing when I draw, which basically means I'm dead. Patrick, my opponent and gaming pal through Mike, makes a turn one Belcher and a turn two activation.
Game 3 is long and drawn-out...for two decks theoretically goldfishing against each other. Patrick has nothing for me, but I have the full complement of Chalice, Pithing Needle, Disrupt, Chain, Archangel, Unmask, and Mindslicer. 11 cards. How can I lose? I lay down turn 1 and 2 Needles on Belcher and a discard spell. Patrick smirks, which I take as a silent confirmation that he has Shattering Spree all set. Then I start dying. My dredges are something like, 10 lands, 3 Breakthroughs, and some irrelevant hate. Wowch. My stumbling allows him to build all but the necessary amount of red to Wish for Shattering Spree and kill both of my Needles. For three turns, all I had to do was draw a Pithing Needle or a land to play my Chalice on one. That would have required another red mana from Patrick, and thus buying me another few turns. Eventually, though, he drew it, Land Granted his Taiga and Bayou, and shot me in the face for a zillion. I flip the top card -- which is against my personal policy of not inviting anger toward myself -- and, as if a heavenly force was punishing me, I saw Pete Venters art.
0-2 // 1-4
Match 3: LEDredge
I win the die roll and elect to play first. I've heard that's good.
Game 1 I open with Unmask. My opponent coolly lays down his opening seven. I take a Dread Return and sigh. My opponent just draws and passes. Had I Unmasked myself, I could have discarded Troll and gone off faster. Someone had told me this fellow was playing Dredge, but I really didn't want that to affect my play because I'm not the type of person to accept a piece of info like that. Oh, well. My integrity (which some in the forums will regard as stupidity or some derivative thereof) made that poor play for me and I never recovered. He eventually was able to throw his hand down and flashback a Deep Analysis.
Game 2 was a terrible one. My dredges were somehow worse than in my first match. There were more of them to be sure, but it was awful watching my deck crap out on me. I was failing my twenty dollar entry fee. If only I had the cash to play a Force of Will deck. I snapped out of that line of thinking quickly and resumed laughing at myself. At this point, I was in full-on fun mode. We were both having a good time along with a spectator laughing at my awful dredges and hard-cast Narcomoebas. Sweet, flying Man-O'-War. By the time he recurred a bunch of Ickies and had a Platinum Angel, it was game over. I saw none of my DR targets and only drew Disrupt after he'd gotten to two lands. Strunin out!
0-3 // 1-6
Match 4: Teneb and Friends
I am playing against a young man with a casual, artifact creature-based five-color green deck. His win con was me having 5 copies of Bridge.
1-3 // 3-6
Match 5: Jack with Zoo
Jack is a KW regular piloting a Zoo build and expressed disappointment about having to play my deck. As he expected, I goldfished but for him Bolting a Kird Ape to nix a Bridge or two. Mid-way through my working out the math, he signed the slip. He responded in the negative when I inquired as to sideboard hate. My only aggro match for the day ended before my sideboard stuff could even come in.
2-3 // 5-6
Match 6: '97 Control
Shard Phoenix, Cunning Wish, Force, etc. My opponent was a mighty fine guy and a great sport, returning to the game with his UR control deck. He explained that it started in 1997 and grew from there. We traded a few references to cards of older eras in between me trying to be as clear as I could with my silly deck. He had a few counterspells and I pointed him toward the spells to counter. At one point in game two he needed a fifth land to cast Shard Phoenix and smack me around, but it didn't come and I won the following turn.
3-3 // 7-6
So, what have I learned?
*2 Sages. The third got sided out so often that it was like having a misregistered MTGO draft deck.
*3 Unmasks are excellent. Sometimes. Their use can be both extremely disruptive (taking Force), constructive (discarding your own guy), or just down right terrible (Dredge mirror). Overall, the fourth Unmask was amazing in the matchups where I needed it.
*I have learned how to use my discard spells more effectively. I used Cabal Therapy on my opponents naming Force way more than I should have. I discovered that not playing Force of Will myself led to fearing the Might of the Force. I only played against one Daze deck, yet I should have given those two spells equal weight in that matchup when Daze was likely the better candidate for Cabal Therapy. Just like Jon Finkel says you can't play Survival with proxies because you need the feel, you must be in the present, playing against a live opponent for Unmask and Therapy to be at maximum efficiency.
*Much in the same way that I had to learn when to bet and how much in poker and when to put another counter on Smokestack, I had to learn what to mulligan with this deck. I basically came up with the formula, "If you ask yourself how it's going to go, the answer is 'poorly'."
Moreover, the way the cookie crumbled turned out to result in bad dredge shenanigans and 50-50 matchups followed by three easy wins. Going through the motions with this deck is really unfun for folks at the lower tables, and I genuinely feel sorry about that. I didn't want to be at those tables playing against Scuttlemutt. What I've learned about dredge is that it isn't really the same deck without Bazaar. It isn't so much a combo deck but really a system deck, much like Eggs. But I'll leave that report for The Mana Drain.
Until next time, Spidey fans...
EDIT:
...And it's next time. After taking a few suggestions and testing further, I have realized that Tribe is crazy good. My new list reflects the change in consistency it creates. I'll list only the relevant (read: changed) numbers. I may also add the one Tarnished Citadel at some point, but I wouldn't dare cut the second Sage despite some recommendations.
3 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return (-1)
1 Flame-Kin Zealot (-1)
2 Cephalid Sage (+1)
This has made the deck incredibly consistent compared to my ex-version. I have reduced my mulligan rate from about once per match to once per two matches, which is saying a lot for such a jank-tastic deck like Legacy Icky.
My sideboard still isn't tuned, so feel free to throw things out. I've considered the following:
-Platinum Angel
- Keeping Mindslicer (more so than Hypnotist as he is sometimes just a Mind Rot. A terrible, terrible Mind Rot. And keep in mind, I have a shiny Hypnotist. A shiny one, and I still think Mindslicer is better.)
-Wispmare / Emerald Charm (if I think people are playing Leyline or Moat.)
-Chalice of the Void (Because Pithing Needle doesn't always get there by itself.)
-More Chain of Vapor (to build up tempo, as though such a concept exists for this deck.)
-Pact of Negation (Secret tech?! No. Merely a fleeting thought.)
I've learned quite a deal from my experiences at KnightWare's tourney. First, people really love play-sets of Tarmogoyf. Second, good hands with this deck don't necessarily yield good results due to the randomness of dredging. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to those of you wise enough to be reading this report and not writing it. I now comprehend that as much as you try to control the randomness (like you would with Cascade in standard) through deckbuilding, Ichorid cannot be entirely consistent without the additional tool of Bazaar. Instead, this is a deck that you cannot play as reservedly as I would normally play. In so many words, it's not you, Icky, it's me. I have surmounted my fear of Daze and Force of Will, but I have not learned to channel that aggressiveness through my deck. Now I don't intend to overplay into Tormod's Crypt, but I sense the rare opportunity and challenge a deck like this presents to such an ever-blue player; I must learn to control a match-up from the aggressor's side. This may be the biggest Magical challenge I've come across. Like, worse than the time I had to choose which two pieces of hate I had to give the Villain off her first turn Gifts. Yeah. That happened. Anyway, getting to the warm and fuzzies, I look forward to growing my skills with Ichorid and continually tuning it such that it is as close to Academy brokenness that it can be.