Introduction and Explanation
People sometimes call Ichorid the "crazy backwards upside down deck". It wants it's opponent's creatures to live, it's creatures to die, it's deck to go in the graveyard and it wants not to draw cards. Many people will have no Idea what's happening when you're playing it and often it will feel like you're playing alone.
The Dredge mechanic was first printed during the ravnica block on green and black cards and was origonaly considered to be a junk ability. The first card featuring dredge to be seen as playable was Life From the Loam and was used in decks like Confinement Aggro Loam and Enchantress. The mechanic did not gain an archetype of its own until one block later when dread return was printed in time spiral. The deck worked by using the dredge mechanic to grow it's grave yard. Over a few turns creatures like Narcomoeba and Ichorid came onto the battlefield and are sacrificed to either wreck your opponents hand with Cabal Therapy, or put a game winning creature out with Dread Return all the while making Zombies with Bridge From Below. The deck usually won by turn 4. Manaless Ichorid in legacy did not begin to take root as a serious archetype until the following list placed. This variant increases speed, consistency and reliability of tradional dedge at the cost of losing fate out against a turn zero leyline of the void.
Manaless Ichorid Nicholas Rausch's 1st place SCG Cincinatti 7/17/2011 (228 Players)
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Gigapede
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
3 Dakmor Salvage
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Sideboard:
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Blazing Archon
1 Gigapede
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Terastodon
4 Contagion
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
This variant of the deck will always choose to be on the draw over the play(to have 8 cards on turn one and naturally discard), And you should also always have a dredger in your hand. These points are so important that I would also only advise to mulligan is if you don't have a dredger.
The goal of manaless Ichorid is to Draw, Discard, then Dredge, using your natural discard as your discard outlet. To do this you need eight cards in hand; and because of this strategy, you'll always be able to dredge on your draw step and discard at end of turn. One key advantage to using your discard step as your discard engine is that you misstep pretty much all counter magic in the format and the format has more now than ever.
There are several key tricks to maintaining this through instant speed hate like tormod's crypt and ravenous trap. You can use a draw effect (like street wraith) in response to the graveyard exile, this will let you save the dredger while your graveyard gets nuked. It's also usually best to open with a gigapede or phantasmagorian since you don't have to commit a dredger to the graveyard until you're ready to draw this way. Regardless of hate your ways of winning with this deck hinge on making the most of each of the following cards.
Bloodghast
Ichorid
Narcomoeba
nether shadow
Bridge from below
Dread Return
Bloodghast: The card that allows Bloodghast to enter the battlefield is Dakmor Salvage and is the worst dredger in the deck, and each Dakmor Salvage Should only be used once so make the most on your Dakmor Salvage by making sure you're going to either win or stop disaster by dredging it. There is a general consensus that this is the weakest card in the deck.
Ichorid: these should come out ever upkeep, and will help make zombies for you with Bridge from Below .
Narcomoeba: This is the best fodder for Cabal Therapy and Dread Return as it comes into play the turn it is dredged.
Nether Shadow: Remember to bring this out every turn if possible. Also remember that in legacy we have to keep our graveyards in the order they are created; however when we dredge each pile that comes off the top of our decks goes into the graveyard simultaneously. This means we can stack the Nether Shadows at the bottom of each dredge pile.
Bridge from below: be careful when attacking or blocking to make sure you don't exile this card. Cabal Therapy and Dread Return are particularly good at making tokens with this when you have multiples in your graveyards.
Dread Return: There are a host of creatures available to you to use with this. They include, but are not limited to
Flame-kin zealot
Inkwell Leviathan
Ancestor's Chosen
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Blazing Archon
Stormtide Leviathan
Terastodon
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Iona, Shield of Emeria
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Woodfall Primus
River Kelpie
Spinx of Lost Truths
As a rule you should have several creatures that draw cards when they come into play (river kelpie, Sphinx of lost truths etc) and at least on finisher in the deck (Iona, Flame kin zealot). You also want as many Dread Returns as possible so you can reanimate them early and often.
Card Pool
Many of the cards that other dredge versions use are usable in this deck. Some of the ones I should mention are,
Golgari Grave-Troll /Stinkweed Imp /Golgari Thug /Shambling Shell: These are what make the deck work and fuel your graveyard. generally the more the card dredges the better. Golgari Grave-Troll is also a good target for Dread return.
Gigapede and Phantasmagorian: These allow you to discard more than one card per turn and can protect you from hate.
Nether Shadow: This deck doesn't have the tieless tribe or putrid imp that traditional dredge has, this is a warm body that takes it's place.
Shambling Shell: Running 16 dredgers is a must since this deck needs one in it's opening hand, this is better than darkblast because it can feedIchorid
Dakmor Salvage / Bloodghast : This deck doesn't have the tieless tribe or putrid imp that traditional legacy ichorid has, these are a warm body to replace them.
Street wraith / gitaxian probe : These provide early explosiveness or protection, Gitaxian probe also allows you to be more accurate with Cabal Therapy .
Ichorid : these should come out ever upkeep, and will make zombies for you if you have a bridge from below out.
Narcomoeba : This is the best fodder for cabal therapy and dread return as it comes into play the turn it is dredged.
Cabal Therapy : These are your disruption and create tokens with Bridge From Below .
Faerie macabre: this is graveyard hate that feeds ichorid
Current Suggested list
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Gitaxian probe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
1 Shambling Shell
3 bloodghast
3 dakmor salvage
3 faerie macabre
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
//Side Board
4 Chancellor of The Annex
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Angel of despair
1 terastodon
1 faerie macabre
4 leyline of the void
The flex spots are Iona, woodfall primus, dakmor salvage + blood ghast, and street wraith and dread return 3-4. Beyond whats mentioned above mishra's bauble and urza's bauble are being tried by some In these spots, as well as Lion's eye diamond, Deep analysis and desperate ravings while others are trying Dryad arbor so that Nature's claim can make it into the sideboard.
Important side board cards are
Contagion
Mindbreak Trap
Leyline of the Void
Leyline of Sanctity
Mental Misstep
Tormod's Crypt
Faerie macabre
Surgical extraction
Chancellor of the annex
Additional info
Kevin Trudeu shares his list on MTG The Source
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Ichorid/page85
Alexander Lapping
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...r_Lapping.html
Article about manaless dredge in legacy on Channel Fireball
http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...redge-returns/
Nicholas Rausch Videos
Finals
http://blip.tv/scglive/scgcin-leg-fi...rausch-5398125
Round 4
http://blip.tv/scglive/scgcin-leg-rd...barger-5398637
Last edited by John Cox; 10-31-2011 at 12:55 PM.
How? I mean... if you discard a Dredger in Response to the Graveexiling, the Dredger is also exiled >.<
Also, I see how this deck has much more graveyard interaction as normal Dredge, BUT it loses to Relic as hard as it loses to Leyline.
Lets say, I open with Relic, you want to play save and discard Phantasmagorian. I use the tap -> Relic, to remove your Phantasmagorian, you respond with discarding 3. I use Relic for the sac effect. You have 5 handcards now, thats like 3 timewalks for you, until you can start dredging again. A lot of decks can build up enough pressure to beat you in this time. OK, you may get 1-2 Dredges maybe, if the deck is slow, but that shouldn't be enough with drawspells to ensure a win at all...
I understand this whole "huge graveyard interaction thing" for cost of all explosiveness, but how can this deck win, in a meta where more than...like 7 graveyard hates are played in the top8, srsly wtf.
Not wanting to be the big nay-sayer, but IMO this deck loses more matches than normal Dredge in EVERY meta where a kinda normal anmount of hate is played...
Combo seems like a huge flaw MU also.
Doesn't relying on DDD turn Thoughtseize into a Timewalk? Doesn't it make SB Leylines terrible choices, since you're Timewalking yourself? This could possibly be avoided by using Unmask to discard a dredger or grab some hate or fight combo.
Thoughtseize is a Time-Walk if and only if it happens on the first turn.
Except for Tendrils, we should beat all of the Thoughtseize decks by much more than a turn, which means that despite this we're still pretty happy. Compare this to Thoughtseize against Mana Dredge (especially Lion's Eye Diamond Dredge), where it sometimes does nothing but usually buys 2-3 turns.
Regarding Leylines:
I think Sanctity is just never worth it, but there are definitely situations (on paper) where it's awesome.
the Void is pretty clearly awesome if it's worth running at all. Against any opposing graveyard decks, it should easily buy back the turn you spent putting it out.
I personally prefer Bojuka Bog in this slot, as it's just as uncounterable as Leyline, you can draw it, and it doesn't Time Walk you. As long as Manaless Dredge is getting a lot of press, though, Leyline is just better.
The normal amount of graveyard hate lately has been 10-15 cards of real hate in the Top 8, possibly with some irrelevant Extirpate and Surgical Extraction alongside. SCG Indy, for example, had scant few hate cards but still no Mana Dredge (this was before popular interest in Manaless) made the Top 8 or the Top 16... clearly more was going on than just graveyard hate.
Depending on how you build it, it's typical for 1/8-1/4 of the deck more to let you play through Relic. Simply cycling Street Wraith in response to the tap is particularly excellent.
Combo is a big problem. The good news is, you can dedicate at least half the sideboard to it, if you want, and you're playing a reasonably fast deck, and you have a bunch of Cabal Therapy to help you out.
Discard effects, combo, and some graveyard hate are some of the reason you want Leyline of sanctity in the sideboard, it's strong enough that it's worth spending a turn doing nothing. The only piece of grave hate that this really auto looses to is Leyline of the void so Ichorid/faster combo are why its there. Faster combo is indeed a problem for this deck so feel free to look into mindbreak trap also.
On the problem with Gigapede/Phantasmagorian. I'm working through the rules for it right now but the concept came from the MTG salvation primer for manaless Ichorid located here, http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showp...70&postcount=1
It's mentioned in the first spoiler.
Leyline of Sanctity, without some way to protect it, is absurdly bad against Tendrils or High Tide, which are the two most worrisome combo decks.
Mindbreak Trap is a little better but still not awesome.
The cards I'd recommend trying right now are: Mental Misstep, Chancellor of the Annex, and Lion's Eye Diamond (with LED you use it to put a bunch of draw effects on the stack and sacrifice LED in response).
Phantasmagorian's main purpose is to help you discard your hand (often responding to the ability with an instance of itself in order to bin 6 or even 9 cards rather than just 3) in order to combo out. Usually, you won't activate Phantasmagorian's discard ability until the turn you win (or the end-step before that).
Gigapede's purposes are to help smooth out the super creature-heavy builds and to act as extra Phantasmagorian. I don't like him.
People say Gigapede allows you to play around graveyard sweepers but I've yet to see any argument that actually supports that at all.
There is a discussion a few pages back which basically says:
1. It doesn't exist in G1 in a significant portion of the meta (Helm RIP Enchantress doesn't seem that good)
2. We already pack hate for leyline and the same hate works against RIP
3. We don't expect RIP to make up a significant portion of the GY hate sector once the hype dies down
4. The same rules for drawing it as leyline apply and we have some noxious revival in the board which can slow down enlightened tutor strategies long enough to let us win.
I think Chancelor of the Forge would compete with Dryad Arbor and we prefer a forest for nuking enchantments or occasionally paying for Daze. As far as a win condition is concerned it only seems worth a Dread Return if you've already got a lot of board dominance. I'd probably consider Chancelor of the Dross or Annex before him since Dross drains and feeds Ichorids and lifelink is significant if you find yourself in some sort of race.
Well my first shot at playing this deck didn't go well, to put it lightly.
My LGS held a tourney with duals as prizes so I decided to take Hollywood's exact list since I had always wanted to play this deck.
Round 1 vs Kade playing U/W RiP-Control (Yes, Rest In Peace maindeck):
Game 1 - He's on the play, of course and goes turn 2 Rest In Peace. On to the next one.
Game 2 - I put him on the play. He gets an early Jace out and I use Phantasmagorian shenanigans during his end step to drop some Nether Shadows and Ichorids in the yard, recur them during my upkeep and send 'em at Jace. He double Swords to Plowshares targeting my lone Ichorid and one of the Nether Shadows. Jace lives but is wounded. My thought on sending them at Jace was to keep him from Brainstormin into the RiP. He drops an Enegry Field. Sure, I recur another Ichorid and send it at Jace, getting rid of both of them. After that I pretty much cruised to victory.
Game 3 - I couldn't get any action going early, he drops turn 2 Rest In Peace and I take a few turns to draw into removal, for which he has Force of Will.
games=1-2 Matches=0-1
Round 2 vs Reese playing Maverick:
I play against Reese a lot and I know she packs 3 md Scavenging Ooze and 3 md Knight of the Reliquary. This won't be fun.
Game 1 - Reese on the play and I am met with a turn 2 Noble Hierarch to which I answer with Contagion targetting the Hierarch and the Dryad Arbor that wanted to attack me. That set me back a bit since I had to Time Walk her for a turn or two and was met with that Scavenging Ooze before I could get going. On to the next one.
Game 2 - I put Reese on the play which throws people off more than you'd think. This time it's turn 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben which I don't really care to much about. Thalia is followed next turn by Scavenging Ooze and next turn by Knight of the Reliquary. I can't find any removal that will help and die quickly.
games=1-4 Matches=0-2
Round 3 vs BJ playing Random W/B-Control:
First let me say BJ irritates me to start with so I'm not looking forward to thias match. Losing to Kade with RiP was actually fun because the games were fun and Kade is cool. Losing to Reese was ok because Reese is a cool person and has some respect for other people. Anyway, on to the macth.
Game 1 - BJ is on the play and does land/go. I draw and discard Phantasmagorian to pass the turn. BJ goes land/go again and I do some crazy shenanigans with my yard, move to my turn and recur a Nether Shadows and Ichorid and send them at him. He answers with double Swords to Plowshares. Really? Shortly after this he gets down Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and makes tokens to chump block, removing my bridges. Ok, fine, I'll grind. In the end he was just holding on when I dredged into goodness, Dread Returned Griselbrand into Flayer of the Hatebound into the biggest Golgari Grave-Troll you ever saw.
Game 2 - I saw BJ playing Exterpate ealier so I wasn't too worried about enchantments. I did bring in Noxious Revival, not sure why since his card was Split Second and I wouldn't be able to play them in response. But I didn't think about that until I had already presented the deck. He opens with Leyline of the Void. On to the next one.
Game 3 - I sb all my enchantment removal, don't see any in my opening hand. He opens with Leyline of the Void. I proceed to draw till I can find something and never get there before I die miserably. In typical BJ fashion he wants to shake after the match. I pack my shit and go home before I punch him in his nose.
games=2-6 Matches=0-3 - Drop
Props:
- Kade for being a great opponent, even when playing what most say is an auto-loss for me. Even his round 2 LED-Dredge opponent was crying about it being an auto-loss. I told him "It's not an auto-loss" and even asked Kade "Is it an auto-loss?" Kade replied "No, you got me the one game." That's how MtG should be. I don't mind losing those matches.
- Reese for having some class when she wins and being a generally cool person.
- Hollywood for the chat discussion before hand. I really want to thank you for your input and for your continued efforts to provide us with information regarding this deck. Guys like you who spend your time to help us by posting all the information you do here deserve some thanks.
Slops:
- Me for my crap play. I'm sure it's me and not the deck. I just didn't play it well enough. Hopefully it will come to me soon since I like the deck.
- BJ for not having any class. Somewhere I once read an article on "Tournament Etiquette". It's too bad that the players who have none can ruin an entire day in a hurry.
Last thoughts:
- I really need to figure out how to SB, most of the time I had no idea what to remove from the MD. I usually chose to side out Phantasmagorian, viewing them as this decks Lion's Eye Diamond where you are "all in". I knew when I needed the SB stuff, but seldom knew what to remove to make room.
- I felt like I should not be mull'ing even though there were times where I really didn't have much action or any action in my hand. I need to learn when it's ok to mulligan. One game my opening hand had no dredger in it, but I kept in the hope that I would draw into one, which I did not for 3 turns. Since I was facing a Leyline of the Void I didn't really sweat it much since if I had a dredger he would have gone away regardless. But ultimately this is another thing with this deck I suck at.
Currently Playing:
Dredge / Hive Mind / Belcher / Sneak-Show
HayWire Motorsports - Tacoma, Washington
GoFundMe
re: when is it OK to mulligan. Almost never. Each mulligan sets you back a turn, which is a huge cost. While learning the deck, I'd adopt a general rule of never mulliganning and try and master the other aspects of playing it before thinking about mulliganning.
re: sideboarding, I think it's correct to sideboard out at least some Phantasmagorian if you're expecting hate that nukes your GY, because you'd rather draw land/hate removal if they do have hate in play, and also using it reduces cards in hand, and you want to be able to get to 8 to DDD once you do remove hate. The creature removal spells are an easy choice to remove against decks with no creatures. Against the u/w deck I would board something like -4 removal, -4 Phantasmagorian, -2 Flayer, +1 Forest, +2 Fetch land, +4 Claim, +3 Silence.
Against u/w rest in peace, you often have quite a while to remove RiP, and then can get going again if you do. Sometimes they will get a quick Jace/Helm, other times not. You didn't mention what actually killed you game three. U/W RiP isn't an auto-loss, but it is a bad matchup, mainly because you lose the normal game 1 advantage dredge has.
Against Maverick, Thalia is a big deal because it makes Therapy/Dread Return/Contagion/Shoal cost 1 more to cast, so you generally have to have an Arbor without summoning sickness in play. I'm not quite sure what you mean re: the Contagion play setting you back a turn, if you mean you weren't able to DDD and this meant you couldn't dredge, the Contagion play probably would not have been worth it. If Knight/Ooze are a big part of your metagame you might want to consider upping the number of Shoals relative to Contagions, although Contagion can skill often kill an early Ooze/Knight.
Sometimes opponents will have hate you don't expect and you will lose game 2 because of this. Assuming you won game 1, once you know what your opponent's hate is, you can do a better job of reacting to it. Sometimes they'll have more hate than you have answers, or a fast clock combined with just enough hate. Sometimes, not.
This deck has lots of unusual interactions and choices - there's a reason that people talking about Dredge as not playing magic, and manaless is even more so - so don't be surprised if it takes a while to get used to.
Aside on "Tournament Etiquette" (which has an element of subjectivity so I can only speak to the etiquette I'm used to) - handshakes after a match are fairly standard, even if one (or both) players might have felt it wasn't a "good game" or their opponent was displaying bad manners. Not wanting to shake hands is generally considered a dick move. If you want to get good at this (or any) deck, you need to find a way to play optimally even against opponents that irritate you. Stuff like double swords on your early creatures happens sometimes. Manaless is great at recovering because you still have a bunch more guys waiting to jump out of your graveyard or deck.
Here's the trick:
1. You activate Phantasmagorian by discarding three cards.
2. Hold priority and activate Street Wraith. Phantasmagorian's ability is still on the stack, as it goes back to your hand on resolution.
3. Dredge with the cycled Wraith.
4. Activate the Phantasmagorian again, discarding three cards.
5. Phantasmagorian's activated ability resolves, which is to say it goes back to your hand.
The use of this trick is to allow you to dump more cards into your graveyard, potentially stacking cards for Shadow, feeding cards to Ichorid and putting the best dregders into your graveyard so you can dredge deeper the following turn. It's actually one of the deck's relatively common power-plays.
Does that work? Assuming you do it on your turn, starting with 8 cards, discard 6 down to 2 cards, one of which is wraith. Then discard wraith, and add a dredger to you hand, you still only have 2 cards when Phantasmagorian resolves. Unless my math is incorrect.
Edit: Actually you're right, I was assuming activate twice rather than activate-cycle-activate.
Well, I don't know why you would do it on your turn because you want to get as many cards into your graveyard as soon as possible.
You're not discarding Street Wraith; you're activating it. There is a huge functional difference. You do it during your opponents' turns so you can get creatures triggering into play during your upkeep and the best dredgers into your graveyard to dig deeper. If you do it during your turn, you won't get any Nether Shadows or Ichorids into play.
Yeah, I meant cycle. "discard" was just to account for it leaving the hand. But I misread the order you were doing things in, thinking you were attempting to dump 9 cards off of it.
Maybe:
-DR Flayer (4 to opponent)
-Sacrifice Flayer and other 2 to DR another Flayer (undying resolves doing 5 to opponent)
-2nd Flayer enters play (8 on opponent)
-Sac Flayer for Therapy, undying resolves, and do 10 damage to opponent. That's a total of 27 dmg :) We always have at least one therapy!
This is useful too when you have wraith+phantasmagorian and another card you don't want do discard (arbor/contagion/shoal/silence), so you can discard the dredger for phantasmagorian twice instead of the desired card.
Ok, that actually made some sense. I could see doing that. Also, this deck seems like it's way more important to make clear when you are NOT passing priority. The old days of simply playing the game and using a general understanding of when priority is passed will not work with this deck.
Now here's an issue I've run into that I could use some help on: Say you have dumped a Phantasmagorian in your yard during your end step and passed turn. During your oppnent's end step you activate Phantasmagorian pitching 3 cards, let's say Nether Shadow, Golgari Grave-Troll and Bridge From Below and stacked them in that order. Your opponent responds by Surgical Extractioning your Golgari Grave-Troll. In response, you cycle Street Wraith and use the draw to activate a dredge on the Troll, which returns the Troll to your hand and removes his Extraction target. If you dredge into another Troll does his Extraction still work on the new Troll in the yard? Or is it countered since it is not the exact same Troll that was targeted?
Currently Playing:
Dredge / Hive Mind / Belcher / Sneak-Show
HayWire Motorsports - Tacoma, Washington
GoFundMe
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