[Question 26] Graveyard Hate; Ichorid

[Bardo]

First an announcement...

Truth be told, the Adept Q&A forum used to be among the Mod/Admin's favorite parts of The Source. A combination of inertia, laziness and stuff related to the now complete CANG(D) thing has really had an affect here. But we're going to do our best to get things going again and try to stick to a regular posting schedule.

So, until things change, we'll be posting a new Adept Q&A Thread every Friday and this is the first one to get it on the rails.

Questions can be sent to me via PM or continue to post your questions for the Adepts at this thread ( http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5869
).

On with the show.

This week's question(s).

Legacy/1.5 has always had strong decks that exploited the graveyard in some form. Back in the day, there was Worldgorger Dragon and sporadic Reanimator decks. Now we have Ichorid, Breakfast, among others, or decks that rely on the graveyard for some strategic gain; e.g., Survival recurring stuff with Genesis, or Threshold needing seven cards in its 'yard for Nimble Mongoose.

With so many cards to play with, there are many ways to fight such strategies, but what is best? Today's question is really two parts. The first is about Legacy deck design; the second about a curious fact about the metagame.

Question 1. What factors go into how you decide which forms of graveyard hate to use in your decks and what are their relative advantages?

New sets have been very good in this regard. We have the new hybrid-mana Wheel of Sun and Moon (http://sales.starcitygames.com//carddisplay.php?product=50098) and Offalsnout (http://sales.starcitygames.com//carddisplay.php?product=48820); the sorta-newish Extirpate and Leyline of the Void and classics like Tormod's Crypt, Planar Void, Honor the Fallen and Ebony Charm.

Question 2. What the hells's up with Ichorid?

It seems like Ichorid should be a lot more popular than it is, but is fairly underrepresented in the metagame, despite its raw power and the (relatively) low cost it takes to acquire the deck.

[MattH]

Ichorid's shine has worn off with all the 1.x play and hype. No one's that interested in it anymore, because it plays so robotically game one, and you need to play so perfectly games 2&3. So it's boring, and Legacy is a format where that's actually a factor in deck selection.

QED!

[Nihil Credo]

Question 1. What factors go into how you decide which forms of graveyard hate to use in your decks and what are their relative advantages?

There are several elements to consider.

The first one is simply the synergy of the hate cards with the deck itself. I won't use Planar Void if my own deck relies on the graveyard; if I use creature/artifact/instant/sorcery tutors, I will devote one of the hate slots to the appropriate card type, even if I might pick something different for the others. And of course, if there exists a hate card that happens to fit a linear (such as Crypt and Heap Doll with Affinity), that's a very strong argument to choose it. Subtler synergies such as favouring Leyline in a deck that mulligans well, or Crypt/Void/Extirpate in one that has access to Turn 1 digging, should also be considered.


The second one is which graveyard decks I am actually preparing for. This means analysing both the metagame - does Loam exist on your side of the Atlantic? Does anyone still play Breakfast? - and the specific weaknesses of my deck. A many-coloured Survival deck with lots of cheap creatures can probably hold Ichorid at bay quite effectively, but it's a Burning Wish away from obliteration against Aggro Loam.


The third one, and by far the most overlooked, is what role the hate is supposed to play in my games.

Do I need to totally shut down the opponent's engine - because I have a slow clock, or perhaps because their engine trumps mine as long as it's active (Aggro Loam, meet 43-Lands, nice LD you've got there)? Then I can't rely on simple 1-for-X tools like Tormod's Crypt or Offalsnout and its ilk, I want something that deals with a threat for the rest of the game. Moreover, I must make sure that my permanent answers will actually be permanent - Leyline of the Void is the most powerful hate card in existence, but can I prevent it from being bounced, or at least replay it immediately when it is bounced? Is my Yixlid Jailer just going to elicit a "Survival for Murderous Redcap"? Extirpate is popular in this role exactly because it can't be answered, except preemptively.

Do I simply want a speed bump to drop with minimal effort, so that I can execute my own plan before the opponent gets back into shape? Tormod's Crypt is a pretty good effect that still lets you curve out like in Game 1. Creatures like Jailer, Offalsnout, or Faerie Macabre are not nearly as efficient, but they double as threats or chumpblockers.
The main question here is how much I am willing to hurt my 60 cards to fit the hate in, especially if I have dead MD cards (although that's unlikely for combo and aggro). Generally, it depends on how much I rely on the hate to tilt the race in my favour - in other words, on how bad my chances were in game 1.


Maybe it is just a specific card that gives me fits. If I can comfortably keep Survival's board clear as long as it doesn't have a Genesis to get back into the game, or if I can nullify Ichorid's hordes with Prisons and Moats yet I'm kold to a Simic Sky Swallower, then perhaps a Ground Seal will satisfy my needs without even investing a card?


Finally, I should consider if and how my opponent is going to answer my hate. Ichorid is definitely going to have Chains of Vapor ready if I show black mana in game 1 - am I going to lose to them? Aggro Loam has Chalice of the Void for Extirpate, EE/Krosan Grip/Burning Wish for permanent-based hate, and can keep a cycling land available to dodge non-split second graveyard removal - can I fight through this and still consistently turn off his engine, or perhaps I should try a different approach (say, Blue Elemental Blasts)?


Question 2. What the hells's up with Ichorid?

It seems like Ichorid should be a lot more popular than it is, but is fairly underrepresented in the metagame, despite its raw power and the (relatively) low cost it takes to acquire the deck.Because testing Dredge is an exercise in patience worthy of Job.

Generally it goes like this: in game 1, you either goldfish them or they mount up some sort of resistance. The first instance is boring, although ego-pleasing, and the second is actually the most fun you can have with Ichorid.

Games 2 and 3, however, almost always devolve into "Which/how much hate is he going to board?" and "Which/how much hate (and protection) has he drawn?", which then determine a) if you're going to mulligan and b) what you're praying to topdeck. Not only is it frustrating to lose either of these guessing games, but it's something you can't really, well, test in the first place, unless your opponent has thirty different lists available that he knows well and he switches between them every match.

(Also, I didn't mention how fun that whole process is for the person sitting on the other side of the table)

This resembles how testing Storm combo works, except that the goldfish part is more boring (you rarely have more than a half-dozen possible plays each turn), and the postboard games are almost completely determined by the psychological and statistical hate game - there's no "pushing through" a Leyline of the Void, whereas a Storm player can, with effort and luck, go off in the face of Counterbalance or Chalice of the Void.

Check the boards and look for people who express an interest in picking up Ichorid. Nine out of ten of them do it because it's got a good power/cost ratio, even though it would not normally be their first choice for a deck.

[Lukas Preuss]

Wow, Nihil answered the first question very thoroughly already... I think I don't have anything to add to that.


Question 2. What the hells's up with Ichorid?

It seems like Ichorid should be a lot more popular than it is, but is fairly underrepresented in the metagame, despite its raw power and the (relatively) low cost it takes to acquire the deck.

Well, Ichorid should be a lot more popular. I have been playing it in some tournaments and to some success (T4 at the Dutch Legacy Champs) during the past months and I think I can safely say that it is one of the most powerful decks in the format. Not only is it extremely fast and consistent, it is also entirely imune to most archetypes. At the Dutch Legacy Champs, I plowed right through the entire field, not losing a single match until I intentionally scooped it up to my team mate Chris Wilczek in the T8.
The truth is, Ichorid is not an extremely easy deck to play. Of course, game 1, you goldfish the opponent, but after that, you have to know the ins and outs of your deck to play around all the hate. You have to read your opponent, board the correct cards, make the right mulligan decisions, and play very differently than in game 1. I think many people pick the deck up and lose, just because this is actually rather difficult. Also, many people port the deck from Extended, running supbar cards like Ancestors Chosen or Sundering Titan and lose because the Extended Ichorid decks play a lot different than the Legacy ones (they have their main focus on the Dread Return combo, whereas it only functions as a broken back-up plan in Legacy – I usually board the Dread Return package out in games 2&3)...

Also, recently, I have stopped playing Ichorid because people are running insane amounts of hate now. The last times I picked the deck up, people would usually board 8-12 cards against me, usually a combination of Extirpate and Yxlid Jailer/Tormod's Crypt/Leyline. I think this is partly because of the hype the deck experienced during the Extended season... people try to hate it out because it is ever present in their minds because of it being "the best deck" in Extended and because they hate losing to it in Legacy. And even with a lot of experience, it gets extremely hard to play around such a massive amount of hate. Well, the metagame will adapt and in a short time, people will go back to running normal amounts of graveyard hate and Ichorid will be a very viable choice again...