[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

@Wuberg:
I'm sorry, i had missed your post.
I don't like Serum Powder in general. The biggest problem i see with Leyline + Powder is sideboarding effectively. In a powderless list sideboarding requires to cut something redundant from the core. With powder those slots get already spent in the maindeck, making the deck less solid post sideboarding. I don't really like leyline, either, so i wouldn't use 3 slots of my maindeck for a way to find it. Maybe someone who actually uses leyline can be more helpful.

By the way, i have not tested Powder + Leyline together, those are assumptions based on the testing of the two separate cards. I might be wrong.

Had an opponent mulligan to four cards with a smug grin on his face game two with Death and Taxes. Before I discard Phantasmagorian for the turn, he casts Enlightened Tutor for Rest in Peace. He tries slamming it down next turn and it eats a Force of Will (pitching Narcomoeba). Dejection sets in as I activate Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f170c0890...7u8ao1_500.gif

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

Had an opponent mulligan to four cards with a smug grin on his face game two with Death and Taxes. Before I discard Phantasmagorian for the turn, he casts Enlightened Tutor for Rest in Peace. He tries slamming it down next turn and it eats a Force of Will (pitching Narcomoeba). Dejection sets in as I activate Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f170c0890...7u8ao1_500.gif

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Goddamn, man, what's that gif from?

"Return of the Living Dead, Part II."

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Originally Posted by carefulmug

The deck wins faster with Unmask because you can target yourself with the Unmask, target a dredger, then dredge for as many Gitaxian Probes or Street Wraiths as you have in hand. This is possible on the first turn, even on the play.
It doesn't seem like it would happen very often, but, technically, it seems Unmask + Cantrips has the earliest possible kill in all the Manaless variations.

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This much I can agree with, regardless of how this opens us up to counter, and despite how you would need an absolute god-hand to actually combo off on T1.
Or do you?
Not to be a dick or anything, but just because curiosity got the better of me, and I assumed it would be hilariously bad. :laugh:

:mad: T1 Manaless Kill :mad:
Lets assume we need 2 cantrips, an Unmask and a decent dredger (Troll or Stinky) in your initial grip of 7+1.
I feel 2 cantrips in hand would be the bare minimum to get a T1 kill, but more the better.
We're running cantrips in the form of Wraith & Probe, but not baubles > Unfortunately, neither Urza's Bauble or Mishra's Bauble will work for a T1 kill.

Okay, so chances of drawing 1 or more, in your first 8 cards;
Unmask (4) = 44%
Cantrips (8) = 70%, getting 2 cantrips or more = ~29%, getting 3 or more = 6%
Decent Dredger (8) = 70%, ANY dredger (based on 15 in the main) = ~91%
So when we mash these together, the chance of us getting a hand of 8 comprising of Unmask, a decent Dredger & at least 2 cantrips is;
9%

:eek: I have to admit... that's better than I thought it would be!

As you can all see, we're being let down by needing lots of cantrips to make the deck work on T1.
For this to actually work, I think 3 or more cantrips in hand would be better, but this shaves our chance down to a godly 1.8%.
If we work with ANY dredger (assuming we run 15), Unmask & at least 2 cantrips, we get 11.8%

If anyone has ever pulled this off competitively, you're probably this guy;
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...ps7788552a.jpg

Did you factor into that solution the black card needed to cast Unmask, too? The entire deck is not black, and you'll have awkward scenarios where the only way the Unmask would work is to pitch a dredger or possibly Street Wraith to cast it.

And if you whiff on the first cantrip without hitting a dredger or Phantasm, you're screwed.

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Originally Posted by slave

This much I can agree with, regardless of how this opens us up to counter, and despite how you would need an absolute god-hand to actually combo off on T1.
Or do you?
Not to be a dick or anything, but just because curiosity got the better of me, and I assumed it would be hilariously bad. :laugh:

:mad: T1 Manaless Kill :mad:
Lets assume we need 2 cantrips, an Unmask and a decent dredger (Troll or Stinky) in your initial grip of 7+1.
I feel 2 cantrips in hand would be the bare minimum to get a T1 kill, but more the better.
We're running cantrips in the form of Wraith & Probe, but not baubles > Unfortunately, neither Urza's Bauble or Mishra's Bauble will work for a T1 kill.

Okay, so chances of drawing 1 or more, in your first 8 cards;
Unmask (4) = 44%
Cantrips (8) = 70%, getting 2 cantrips or more = ~29%, getting 3 or more = 6%
Decent Dredger (8) = 70%, ANY dredger (based on 15 in the main) = ~91%
So when we mash these together, the chance of us getting a hand of 8 comprising of Unmask, a decent Dredger & at least 2 cantrips is;
9%

:eek: I have to admit... that's better than I thought it would be!

As you can all see, we're being let down by needing lots of cantrips to make the deck work on T1.
For this to actually work, I think 3 or more cantrips in hand would be better, but this shaves our chance down to a godly 1.8%.
If we work with ANY dredger (assuming we run 15), Unmask & at least 2 cantrips, we get 11.8%

If anyone has ever pulled this off competitively, you're probably this guy;
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...ps7788552a.jpg

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Wow. Thanks for doing the math on that one. Like Hollywood says, the rate is probably slightly lower when factoring in that redundant black card to pitch to Unmask. And significantly lower if we were placed on the play and hoped to draw this.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

Did you factor into that solution the black card needed to cast Unmask, too? The entire deck is not black, and you'll have awkward scenarios where the only way the Unmask would work is to pitch a dredger or possibly Street Wraith to cast it.

And if you whiff on the first cantrip without hitting a dredger or Phantasm, you're screwed.

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Ha ha - yeah I actually spaced on that bit. Given that the majority is black, the overall % chance wouldn't be lowered all that much I wouldn't think, as the chance of having a black card in your hand to pitch in addition to all the other stuff would actually be very likely > think 95%+ kinda likely.
Course that's one helluva hand!!!

Just thought I'd have some fun.

Mind you, "pullin a Bradbury" might still be a possibility.:laugh:

Okay, so lets try again.... with black card to discard to Unmask.
I'm gonna assume we're going for the version with 3x Griselbrand & 4 Dryad Arbor.

Black cards to discard to Unmask shouldn't be a cantrip ideally, so I'm gonna exclude Street Wraith here, and assume we only care about having 1 Unmask, so the other 3 are fair game.
Black card for Unmask (which is excluding 1 Unmask & 4 Wraith) = 99%
But....
All this assumes the black card in hand is one we don't actually need to make a turn1 actually happen. Now some cards we should be able to exile quite happily, like Shadow, but others like Phantasmagorian could actually hurt our chances significantly. Even so, by excluding cards like Stinkweed, Phantsamagorian etc., this doesn't actually drop the percentage chance as much as you may think. To illustrate;
Black card for Unmask, at 25 cards (from a possible 48 in the deck) = 99%. :eyebrow:

But don't you need to have a Dryad Arbor in hand aswell as two Narcomoeba's close to the top of the deck, aswell as a Dread Return comin up in the first 1 or 2 dredges?
Whilst not strictly crucial for all of these to be true, lets just assume we need a Dread Return & 2 Narc's within the first 10 cards on top of the deck after we've drawn our grip, & an Arbor in hand
2 Narc's up top = 12.5% .... oh dear.
Dryad Arbor in hand = 44%
1 Dread Return up top = 52%
From this;
The chance of having the nuts draw of 2 cantrips, Unmask + discard black, a decent dredger, Narc's up top & Dryad Arbor = 0.25%!!!

Alrighty then! > That's much more like what I was expecting for a T1 win % when I first started this.
Of course, a T2 win is MUCH more likely.

I would hazard a guess that if anyone could even goldfish a T1 win from only 2 cantrips you must have been kissed on the dick , let alone competition.

Food for thought: Moldervine Cloak can't be exiled by Deathrite Shaman

HUGE downside: Dredge 2 instead of 3 (I assumed 3 because it's a 3CMC card that gives +3/+3, but apparently it was not to be)

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Originally Posted by slave

This much I can agree with, regardless of how this opens us up to counter, and despite how you would need an absolute god-hand to actually combo off on T1.
Or do you?
Not to be a dick or anything, but just because curiosity got the better of me, and I assumed it would be hilariously bad. :laugh:

:mad: T1 Manaless Kill :mad:
Lets assume we need 2 cantrips, an Unmask and a decent dredger (Troll or Stinky) in your initial grip of 7+1.
I feel 2 cantrips in hand would be the bare minimum to get a T1 kill, but more the better.
We're running cantrips in the form of Wraith & Probe, but not baubles > Unfortunately, neither Urza's Bauble or Mishra's Bauble will work for a T1 kill.

Okay, so chances of drawing 1 or more, in your first 8 cards;
Unmask (4) = 44%
Cantrips (8) = 70%, getting 2 cantrips or more = ~29%, getting 3 or more = 6%
Decent Dredger (8) = 70%, ANY dredger (based on 15 in the main) = ~91%
So when we mash these together, the chance of us getting a hand of 8 comprising of Unmask, a decent Dredger & at least 2 cantrips is;
9%

...

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Originally Posted by slave

Okay, so lets try again.... with black card to discard to Unmask.
I'm gonna assume we're going for the version with 3x Griselbrand & 4 Dryad Arbor.

...

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Not to be a dick or anything :wink:, but one should actually be a bit more careful when calculating probabilities for a specific hand requiring a combination of cards. Just multiplying the individual probabilities will NOT give the correct answer since it does not take into account how many cards of type A one has drawn when also wanting to draw card B. We draw cards without replacement. Instead, one should use the Hypergeometric distribution, which in the example above needs to be extended to a Multivariate hypergeometric distribution since we're interested in more than just two card types.

I do unfortunately not have the time or energy for a long discussion concerning probabilities and the Hypergeometric Distribution. More importantly, there's already a wealth of information out there concerning this which also explains it better than I would. A quick Google visit did for example yield the below two articles and I'm sure that other people around here have other great suggestions as well:
Stats 101: The Math Behind Tom Carpenter's Assumptions (good introduction)
Of Math and Magic (quite dense, but great if you're into this sort of thing)

Nevertheless, a simple to use and really great tool for calculating stuff like this is the Deck-u-lator. Given that one uses it with care, one certainly does not need to be an expert on statistics to obtain very useful results. Make sure to read both 'How it works' and 'Advanced use'.

Let us take a look at the first example above where we want the following cards (and neglect that Unmask needs an additional black card):
a) At least 1 Unmask
b) At least 2 Cantrips
c) At least 1 Decent Dredger

The configuration in Deck-u-lator would look like this:

have / need / card
4 / 1 / Unmask
8 / 2 / Cantrips
8 / 1 / Decent Dredgers
40 / 0 / Other cards

Which yields a 6.4% chance to get our combination in the first 7+1 = 8 cards (i.e. lower than the above, incorrect 9%). Note that the 0 given for Other cards imply that we get at least 1 Unmask etc.

All things considered, it's a low probability and doesn't sell me on taking that dangerous line of play - even if it exists. You're gambling that your top three to six cards will have a dredger or Phantasm stacked in there.

If not, that's really not good - especially if an opponent has one-shot hate in their hand. I'd rather wait a turn, cycle a SW and DDD if I had to.

So.. went yesterday to our monthly tournament, we were 79 players (breaking the previous record of 70) and since everyone was cutting their graveyard hate in the last moment (since there was only 1 dredge-player last time) I in return decided in the very last minute to play manaless dredge (this time there were like 6-7 people playing dredge).
I actually wanted to write a full report, taking a lot more notes than usual but since I did not do well I'll just do a short recap.

M1 Team America
G! I put him on the play and he mulls down to 4 to find something which can beat me. He plays Usea -> Thoughtseize (taking probe), I'll pass and he Brainstorms into a DRS. I discard a Troll which he tries to eat, I cycle SW and get a turn later or two a Flayer & a Troll for the kill.
G2 I'll show im a Chanellor and he fetches, I discard Troll and he plays a Spellbomb paying for the Chancellor.
I Dredge and discard an Ichorid, he thoughtseizes me taking my troll, ponders and activate his bomb.
My turn consists of nothing and he plays anouther Thoughtseize taking my FoW and lays a Delver, I say go again.
His delver flipps and he plays a Library, I discard Stinki. He takes an extra card, plays Pithing Needle (Phanta) & Stalker and I die soon.
This game I couldve countered the Spellbomb but I was afraid of Daze and since my GY was small (just a Dredger, a Bridge & 1 Ichorid) I thought I should just move an and safe my counter for something more important.
G3 He mulls to 6 and keeps a hand with no colored manasource but a Spellbomb which he plays turn 1. I discard something, he passes turn 2 & 3 doing nothing while I dredge, turn 3 & 4 I find a Nether Shadow, I bring both Shadows into play while he finds an Usea and duresses me taking Bridge, somewhere he activates his Spellbomb, not sure anymore when it happened but turn 5 I get an Ichorid and Therapy away 2 Tombstalkers, he gets a Delver & flipps it the next turn, brainstorming into an DRS, we trade Ichorid & Delver beats while his DRS eats some stuff, I dredge into an DR & 1 Bridge, he removes the DR so I can't sac my team, I cycle a SW or Probe and dredge into Moebas, he has to remove my Ichorids with his DRS since they start to pressure him and hes at 6, I dredge into a DR and return a 22/22 Troll which, combined with some Zombies take his life away.

M2 Team America
G1 He starts with Bayou, go, I discard a Troll, he plays a DRS, I dredge & probe into some stuff he scoops.
G2 I show im 2 Chancellor and he does nothing for the first 3 turns but playing lands, unfortunately I can only dredge for 3 the whole time, I get a Moeba which meets a Dismember and he follows it up by an Ooze & DRS which meets my scoop since I still only have 1 Dredger.
G3 He mulls to 6 while I have a pretty good hand with Troll, Stinki, 2x Probe, 1x SW and stuff.. unfortunately he starts with Thoughtseize (SW) followed by a topdecked green source & DRS, DRS, DRS while I draw go getting nothing to battle his Shamans (he only had 1 g source so all I needed was a Phantasmagorian or a SW)..

M3 Loampox, a friend of mine.
G1 He pretty much does nothing but playing lands and stare at his dead cards (various Sinkholes & Hymns), he gets a T4 Stalker but he's dead next turn to Ichorid & Zombies.
G2 He starts with Mox into Library, I discard a Shell, he draws 2 extra cards and trys to Surgical Extract my Shell, since it was my only dredger I Shoaled it, in response he casts a second Extraction and I'm forced to force it pitching my 2 probes. The next 3 turns consists of me chaindreding but hitting not much else. His turn 5 (by now he's at 7 and I have lethal on board) he plays Hexmage & Depths, removing my bridges while netting him a 20/20. I hit a moeba and barely manage to cast DR on a Stinkweed Imp to provide myself a second flier in case he has removal while still maintaining lethal for the next turn. Unfortunately he has 1 Abrupt Decay in hand and his library gets him the second one.
G3 He starts with an IOK taking probe, I say go. T2 he plays Hexmage & Depths, I discard a Troll and cycle a SW in hope of hitting a Moeba to not die, I miss but he had an Extraction anyway.

I still can't believe I lost versus Pox..how is this even possible?

M4 Enchantress with RIP maindeck.
G1 He plays t3 RIP.
G2 He plays T3 Rip which meets FoW and t4 RIP which meets scoop.

M5 Blitzzoo (Burning Tree Emissary, Experiment One, Vexing Devil + normal Zoo stuff)
G1 I show him Chancellor, he just plays a land. Next turn he plays a Guide while I cycle a probe turn 2, he plays 2 more creatures and bolts his guide to remove Bridges I still manage to DR a Rider into a kill.
G2 I expect Crypt and board Leyline in which I start with, though I have a weak hand with 0 dredgers (first & only time this tournament (I played 16 dredgers)) with 3 Moebas.. He starts with a Devil, followed by BTE, BTE, Guide, and I die turn 3.
G3 He starts with Exp. 1, plays Thalia turn 2 and a Goyf turn 3, I dredge and dredge and dredge not netting me any Ichorids, Shadows or Moebas.. finally I hit 1 Moeba & 2 Bridges but it was to late, he simply bolts 1 of his creatures and I die.

M6 Casual-Angel-deck
Nothing to write here.

Afterwards I dropped with a 2-4 record.


I don't know what to say.. I had fairly good matchups (excluding Enchantress) and my opponents didn't had the nutter-butters but I still failed miserably. I pretty much can't blame myself, I did not forget about a single trigger and most of my therpies did hit. Speaking of Therapies.. the whole tournament I casted 4 or 5.. dunno where they were hiding.. I DR a troll twice, a flayer once & 1 Rider once..
All in all I was and am kinda demotivated right no and probably won't play dredge anytime soon. (Probably for good reason since after so many people played dredge (and despite the lack of hate none did well, though I haven't spoken to the others why) the hate is gonna rise.. well or maybe not since apparently it's not needed.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

All things considered, it's a low probability and doesn't sell me on taking that dangerous line of play - even if it exists. You're gambling that your top three to six cards will have a dredger or Phantasm stacked in there.

If not, that's really not good - especially if an opponent has one-shot hate in their hand. I'd rather wait a turn, cycle a SW and DDD if I had to.

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Indeed, I would personally not bet on a line of play that is only possible in less than 1 out of 15 games either.

Speaking of probabilities, what are your thoughts on Serum Powder nowadays? Sorry of I'm flogging a dead horse here, but I read earlier in the thread that you had some positive results in a Dryad Arbor / Bloodghast build and I'm curious if those might apply to Blue / FoW build as well. Especially as a possible way to increase the chances of drawing Leyline after sideboarding. I've just picked up the deck so I'm really not confident enough to trust my own test results for quite a while :smile:

That's tough Holly.
Losing to Pox? Wow, that must have sucked.
The hate we have to get through these days is very oppressive. I used to run LED-dredge on occasion, but in my hands I find that it crumples to hate even worse than Manaless.

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Originally Posted by wuberg

Not to be a dick or anything :wink:, but one should actually be a bit more careful when calculating probabilities for a specific hand requiring a combination of cards. Just multiplying the individual probabilities will NOT give the correct answer since it does not take into account how many cards of type A one has drawn when also wanting to draw card B. We draw cards without replacement. Instead, one should use the Hypergeometric distribution, which in the example above needs to be extended to a Multivariate hypergeometric distribution since we're interested in more than just two card types.

Which yields a 6.4% chance to get our combination in the first 7+1 = 8 cards (i.e. lower than the above, incorrect 9%). Note that the 0 given for Other cards imply that we get at least 1 Unmask etc.

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Don't need to be careful there wuberg > I was just doing it to have a bit of fun.
And you're right, I wasn't aware how to calculate that stuff beyond Hypergeometric > cheers for the link.

I know without even goldfishing it, that a T1 combo win with manaless is close to impossible after playing with the deck for some years.
I did run Unmask for a while there. With Serum Powder, I would think our chances would be somewhat increased, but only by a very small degree.
Given the perfect storm of variables we would need (like landing three creatures on the field, having Dread Return in the yard etc.), and the fact that getting all these variables to come together all at once c/o Multivariate H-D, I would think 6.4% is quite optimistic.
I reckon the value would be much closer <1%.

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Originally Posted by wuberg

Speaking of probabilities, what are your thoughts on Serum Powder nowadays?

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I found it's actually not that bad back when I tested it.
Having a way to find anti-hate, counter or simply a free mulligan can be useful, especially given that RiP/Cage are now around.
But.... in the interest of not diluting the deck, what would you cut for them?

The problem with Serum Powder is that you're losing threat density for a tutor in a deck where you will at some point have to rely on Dredging for 3 or drawing two Dredgers in hand in order to win. So you really have to ask yourself what card is important enough in your opening hand that you'd be willing to cut 4 cards from the deck in order to increase the odds of drawing X more in your opening hand.

Highest impact T1 card I know of is Chancellor, otherwise I'm not sure if increasing the odds of opening with Troll and Imp are better than just a cantrip unless you're trying to really maximize being uncounterable.

It's not a bad card by any means, I've been thinking of playing it instead of Unmask just because I really don't think that card does enough to stop anything in the format from killing us before we reach our fundamental turn and prefer Dryad Arbor for that reason. That slot is kind of low impact IMO.

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Originally Posted by slave

I know without even goldfishing it, that a T1 combo win with manaless is close to impossible after playing with the deck for some years.
I did run Unmask for a while there. With Serum Powder, I would think our chances would be somewhat increased, but only by a very small degree.
Given the perfect storm of variables we would need (like landing three creatures on the field, having Dread Return in the yard etc.), and the fact that getting all these variables to come together all at once c/o Multivariate H-D, I would think 6.4% is quite optimistic.

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Indeed, taking additional factors into account such as having a black card in hand, getting the desired cards into our graveyard when dredging etc will definitely lower the probability significantly below 6.4%. I'm certainly not trying to argue for a turn 1 win, I just wanted to give a general hint on how to calculate things properly :wink:

Concerning Serum Powder, my interest in that card has nothing to do with a possible turn 1 win. I'm just curious if there's any difference in the general applicability of Serum Powder in a Dryad Arbor / Bloodghast build VS a Blue / FoW build? From what I understand so far, the pro:s and con:s of Powder apply to both builds equally. Please keep in mind that I only picked up this deck a few weeks ago so I might be missing something obvious here, but that's also why I'm asking :smile:

So first off I want to say that I played manaless blue today to a 2-0-2 record (yay undefeated:-). The deck felt great...it was not that the blue was super relevant but I wasnt hurt by all those blue cards clogging up my graveyard either, anyone else have these similiar sentiments. Regardless I countered a few relevant spells (exhume) that surely would have ended me. Game of the day was against reanimator, beating him with an active elesh norn ( flayer +recurring ichys). Now to the point of my quote......a question of ethics. Final round before split to top four, my opponent and I are both 2-0-1 and only one of us can move on and only with a win. Long story short we go to time. He suggests we we see who had the better breakers to see who advances, I tell him we should playout the five turns and he agrees. After five rounds nobody makes any progress and even though he was lower in life, his breakers were worse than mine he refused to scoop to me. It was his idea to look at the breakers but since I " chose to play the turns " he said I forfeited the option. So in the end neither of us moved on, do I have the right to be a little pissed off with said player. In the end he had humility out and I had seven creatures on board against his one. My life was at twenty his was like twelve......his reasoning was he could hit a termius. I flashed a force and everyone errupted into laughter.

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Originally Posted by slave

That's tough Holly.
Losing to Pox? Wow, that must have sucked.
The hate we have to get through these days is very oppressive. I used to run LED-dredge on occasion, but in my hands I find that it crumples to hate even worse than Manaless.



Don't need to be careful there wuberg > I was just doing it to have a bit of fun.
And you're right, I wasn't aware how to calculate that stuff beyond Hypergeometric > cheers for the link.

I know without even goldfishing it, that a T1 combo win with manaless is close to impossible after playing with the deck for some years.
I did run Unmask for a while there. With Serum Powder, I would think our chances would be somewhat increased, but only by a very small degree.
Given the perfect storm of variables we would need (like landing three creatures on the field, having Dread Return in the yard etc.), and the fact that getting all these variables to come together all at once c/o Multivariate H-D, I would think 6.4% is quite optimistic.
I reckon the value would be much closer <1%.


I found it's actually not that bad back when I tested it.
Having a way to find anti-hate, counter or simply a free mulligan can be useful, especially given that RiP/Cage are now around.
But.... in the interest of not diluting the deck, what would you cut for them?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't LED much much better than Unmask for a T1 / T2 win?

It's 1 card instead of 2, can discard multiples (so your odds of having multiple dredgers and such are a little more friendly), and eliminates any need for Phantasmagorian as an early dredge.

Since you cant use LED to discard something from your opponent that point is mood.