[Deck] Ichorid

[Xero]

One format that is somewhat similar Legacy is Classic MTGO. This format lacks FoW, Lackey, and several other important cards. However, Vampiric Tutor, Flash, and Skullclamp are all legal, making the power level relativiely close. One Classic deck that I think can be transferred to Legacy is a type of Ichorid deck similar to the ones developed for Vintage. Here's what I'm working on:


4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Deep Analysis
4x Cephalid Colesium
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dread Return

4x Serum Powder

4x Narcomeba
4x Ichorid
4x Street Wraith

4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug
3x Shambling Shell

3x Flame-Kin Zealot
2x Cephalid Sage

The deck wins on turns 1-2 a surprising amount of the time. A sample opening hand could be:

1x LeD
1x Cephalid Colesium
1x Serum Powder
2x Stinkweed Imp
1x Street Wraith
1x Bridge from Below

First turn: Play LeD and Colesium. Cycle Street Wraith, in response, sac LeD for UUU. Replace draw from Wraith with Dredging 5 times (one Narcomeba, one Bridge, one Therapy in the yard). Sac. Cephalid Colesium. Dredge 5, Dredge 5, Dredge 6. (3 Narcomeba, 1 F-K Zealot, 3 Bridge, 2 Therapy, 2 Dread Return in yard). Sac Narcomeba to Therapy (2 Narcomeba, 6 Zombie tokens in play). Sac 2x Narcomeba+token to Dread Return (11 tokens in play), getting back Zealot. Swing for 36.

These sorts of hands are not uncommon. However, the deck has a significant problem with consistancy, especially on the play. Assuming I choose to be on the draw, here's how 10 sample hands went:

1. Turn 2 win.
2. Mulled into oblivion
3. Turn 1 win (Serum Powder Mulligan to 7)
4. Turn 5 win (Mull to six)
5. Turn 3 win
6. Turn 3 win (Serum Powder mull)
7. Turn 6 win (Mull to 5)
8. Turn 1 win
9. Turn 2 win (mulled to 6, serum powder mull to 6, serum powder mull to 6)
10. Turn 11 win (should have mulliganed here).

That's unfortunate, but I think the deck is worth working on. Future Sight gave Ichoird some powerful tools, and I believe that a deck similar to this one could be very viable.

[hi-val]

Having experience with this deck in Vintage, you should probably cut FKZs down to just one and up the Sages. The LEDs are almost as good as Bazaar in the deck. My team figured out that in Vintage, taking three damage for a free One With Nothing was absolutely what the deck needed, so we run the alotted 1 LED there. I'm totally serious about this. You might also consider Dryad Arbor. It really helps to cast Emerald Charm and flash back Return.

[laststepdown]

taking three damage for a free One With Nothing was absolutely what the deck needed

sigged.

[Windux]

Do you really need 4 Dread Return?
Would 3 be enough? Also, just 4 Cephalid Coluseum and 4 LED for popping up your lands and flashback Analysis?

[Elfrago]

Think twice could help with extra draw from the grave and more dredging.

[DeDennis]

I gave the deck a try and missed some discard outlets, am I doing something wrong?

[MattH]

What do you do when your opening hand doesn't have LED? Mulligan until it does?

[Xero]

Quote:
taking three damage for a free One With Nothing was absolutely what the deck needed
sigged.

He's actually right. Vintage Ichorid is kind of a strange deck.

Having experience with this deck in Vintage, you should probably cut FKZs down to just one and up the Sages. The LEDs are almost as good as Bazaar in the deck. My team figured out that in Vintage, taking three damage for a free One With Nothing was absolutely what the deck needed, so we run the alotted 1 LED there. I'm totally serious about this. You might also consider Dryad Arbor. It really helps to cast Emerald Charm and flash back Return.

I like the FKZs in that they often can immediately win the game, rather than relying on Sage, etc. to find them. My sideboard right now is:

4x Dryad Arbor
3x Bayou
4x Reverant Silence
4x Chalice

I really like the Arbors, they might be good in the maindeck.

hat do you do when your opening hand doesn't have LED? Mulligan until it does?

Not necessarily, especially if you're going second. For example, a hand like

2x Street Wraith
1x Golgari Grave-Troll
2x Stinkweed Imp
3x Whatever

is actually quite good. You can discard the Grave-Troll on your discard phase, then dredge with the Street Wriaths to get the ball rolling. LeD is definietly important, however.

[BreathWeapon]

Obsessive Search is a replacement/addition for/to Street Wraith that supports Force of Will in the MD/SB. I don't think that the objective here is speed, because the deck is inevitable with just Zombie tokens, Ichorid, Dread Return on Grave-Troll and Cabal Therapy, instead the objective is to add disruption/permission that guarantees that Lion's Eye Diamond resolves and aggro can't get "game, match, point" with mulliganing into Tormod's Crypt game 2.

I think you need MD Unmask, SB Force of Will and either Obsessive Research or Cephalid Sages in the MD to support Force of Will. I'm not certain if Obsessive Research or Cephalid Sages is right, or whether or not a Dredger/Dread Returns should be cut for both, but I'm guessing that Obsessive Research is just as good as Street Wraith and Unmask is more important than non-Troll Dread Return targets.

[blacklotus3636]

I thought the point of mana-less ichorid in vintage was to not play any spells and go as fast as you can without having to worry about disruption like force of will. Mana-less ichorid doesn`t port that well to legacy because in legacy you still have to play spells to win the game but there is the same pool of disruption in legacy as there is in vintage and seeing as how force is a very played card I don`t think it will work. The other problem is that although vintage mana-less ichorid wins without ever casting a spell which makes it immune to force of will it is much weaker to other disruption like leyline,crypt and wasteland with no way to combat it. I like the idea but it will never be a metagame defining deck because it scoops to certain disruption. I do think this deck might be able to catch someone off guard and get a few match wins because of it.

[BreathWeapon]

Obviously, the dynamics of the deck have to change significantly when you substitute an uncounterable, recurring dredge engine for a counterable, one time outlet, but that doesn't invalidate the deck. I think the problem is that no one is looking past the goldfish and addressing control, where wanting to be on the draw for Cephalid Coliseum and Threshold conflicts with adding Daze to the equation, being on the draw conflicts with using Unmask and Chalice of the Void to stop Tormod's Crypt, being on the draw (or just using Unmask, Force of Will and Misdirection) conflicts with Threshold (or rather you're forced to wait another turn before you can go off).

Game one, you're on the draw, you get to see your opponent's land drop, and from there you can either decide to use Unmask, hope the Cephalid Coliseum can protect LED from Daze or draw/discard and just use the top of your deck and your maximum hand size to Dredge. Game two, Force of Will and Misdirection come in and you pray. Game three is where it gets interesting, because you get to choose between play and draw, where you want to be on the play against aggro so you can get Unmask and Chalice of the Void to disrupt their hate, and you can SB in Basking Rootwalla/Dryad Arbor to factor in Cabal Therapy as well. You can also do some tricky shit, like play LED and pass, and when the opponent plays his Tormod's Crypt, you sac in response and play Circular Logic.

You don't need Obsessive Search to support Force of Will if you bring in Misdirection to, tho' the blue count helps, so you can add Dryad Arbor instead. Commandeer and Foil seem playable, if you have the blue card count for Commandeer and the Dryad Arbor/SB lands for Foil.

It may have a glass jaw, but it's bullet proof glass. As long as your opponent's aren't playing around with Leylines, I think you've got good odds.

[Awesomator]

Guess I'll post my list which has been testing extremely well since I've been giving it out anyway.

2x Tropical Island
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Lotus Petal
4x LED
1x Careful Study
4x Breakthrough
4x Deep Analysis
3x Dread Return
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Bridge from Below

2x Cephalid Sage
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug
4x Street Wraith

My SB

4x Dryad Arbor
1x Tropical Island
4x Chalice of the Void (Post Bannings, helps to race or cripple combo)
4x Reverent Silence
2x Emerald Charm (not random, 5th way to get rid of enchantments and silence is much better)

There are less dredge creatures in my build and there are no serum powders. I have tested with Serum Powder and they hurt the deck pretty bad imo. Cutting to three therapy has been awesome, hasn't affected any matchups except for solidarity. 3 Dread Return is all you need. Flamekin is easy to get to through Sage and draw/dredge. Breakthrough is ridiculous, busted with led + a land.

[Binary Star]

I lost to the above build on the first turn for two games in a row. I expect big things from this deck.

[Awesomator]

Was it to me on mws? lol

Since the changes I've been pulling out a lot more turn one kills, this deck seems very solid.

[Binary Star]

Was it to me on mws? lol

Since the changes I've been pulling out a lot more turn one kills, this deck seems very solid.

Yup!! Keep up the good work!!

[The Rack]

I lost to it twice also and the person said they won a Mox tourney with it. Was that you Awesomeator? So Leyline means g3 all the time? what about other gy removal. How do you guys stand up to it?

[barron]

with a hand of two wraiths and a thug why would you wait until your discard phase? I will admit i know nothing about how to play the deck since I never have, but my inceptive opinion is that wraithing on your upkeep would greatly benefit your tempo since, if you chose, you could dredge at least 3 times before your first main phase.

[Awesomator]

Vs Leyline there are Silences, Arbors, and Charms. Vs Crypt there are only chalices (or could play needles). Yixlid Jailer is a house vs the deck though, that's if they get around therapies and the speed of the deck.

[Bane of the Living]

Are fourteen mana sources enough? Would Chrome Mox be better than Lotus Petal or does the deck just win without needing the mana source a second time? When is Arbor coming in and why exactly?

[edgewalker]

In testing this deck, I have found that there is a huge poblem in the amount of discard outlets used in the deck. I've tested both careful study and breakthrough, and I love both. The only problem is we only really have room for one.

I happen to side with careful study because to many times I've used break through only to draw DA, DA, GGT, LED and think,"man I wish I could keep that LED" Careful study gives you the flexibility of keeping those LEDs, but it doesn't let you draw enough or dig deep enough into the deck.

Ideally, I wish I could play 8 LEDs in the place of 4 Careful study/breakthrough but I can't. Basicly what I'm trying to get at is that I've had games with this deck where I have turn 1 2 wins half the time and the other I have the god hand, but no way to put anything in the yard. I think a full package of Careful Study and Breakthrough needs to be looked at, but the question is what to take out. Personally, and I feel almost dirty saying this, I think Ichorid's might need to go, at this point they're only an alterntive win condition since a swarm of hasted zombies is so much better.