[Deck] Dredge

Obviously, gravehate topdeck isn't likely. But it's not unlikely neither. with brainstorms, tops, fetches, ponders, trinket mages, ... In some MUs it's really dangerous to give your opponent 1 more turn with mana to do anything. Topdecking EE or deed is quite the same if you're facing 1 or 2 goyfs. If you take each situation individually, maybe Yosei is not the best. but it looks like the best overall to me because it's useful in every situation:
- against a strong creature board, it offers 1 fog + 1 alpha strike.
- against combo it cuts lands, moxen and petals and it should be enough after 1 or 2 cabal therapy to prevent them to win, do an alpha strike at the next turn.
- against control, it taps out the opponent preventing him to dig or to play anything else than a (really) topdecked tormod's crypt.
- if you are in deep shit (read: nothing in the grave), it provides a 5/5 flying which is an evasive clock in itself.

Compared to other solutions, its only weakness is that you'll want to sacrifice it 90% of time and that you don't always have the sacrifice outlet. Compared to FKZ, it's also dying to The Tabernacle (remains only the Ichorid beatdown plan and reanimating a big on, hoping your single land won't get wasted). The big one can be Yosei, but definitely neither Ancestor's Chosen nor Sadistic Hypnotist.

I'm not conveinced that these Yosei posts aren't some really clever trolling, since no one who plays Magic could possibly be this dense. But let me just point out one thing that hasn't been mentioned.

Regardless of the fact that Hypnotist discards lands, moxen, petals, etc. so that any non-Crypt top deck is likey irrelevant; what possible good is Yosei in the first three turns? Tap your two lands, and your one creature? Maybe? Sounds awsome. Much better than dumping them all in the graveyard.

And realistically, why would anyone care if they do top the miracle Crypt? You lose your graveyard after discarding their entire hand, and are left with, in most cases, three 2/2's and possibly a PImp and land after doing so. Yeah. I'll take that board position any day of the week.


EDIT: And yeah......I can just imagine some troll adding in "Well what good does Hypnotist do on turn five?" Please remember, that if you are just getting to DR for the first time on turn five, then things have gone terribly wrong anyway, and that you would like be best off getting a GGT to just try and win instead of some tricks. Especially if it's a creature deck. Since you likely won't have Bridges at that point, sacc'ing your biggest threat to get maybe two Ichorid attacks through seems blatantly awful.

I suppose in France they only DR after turn 5. Sounds like an awesome metagame in which to play

I did not see that it was the LED version thread. This may change a bit the argumentation. But anyway, I don't understand that some people still play LED versions.

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I suppose in France they only DR after turn 5. Sounds like an awesome metagame in which to play

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Ps: I wonder who is trolling. Definitely not us.

Running FKZ instead of Yosei you are forced to run 4 firestorm sb, not to top 8 with icho, i am stunned reading your tournament reports losing vs Zoo twice a week ^^' because a single fanatic mogg is a real pain to you.
Yosei allows not to be as bridge dependant as you are.

I really got a strong matchup against Zoo and Gobs because of Yosei.
T1 mogg fa ? Don't care, dredging into deeps, knowing my Yosei will make me bridge independant.

For the record, in France tempotresh is running 4 anti grave slots, turning the matchup against icho in a strong fight when you just need to deal with pyroclasm in US;) So DR turn 2 against TempoThresh is kind of hard when you are facing hate + counterspell effect + wasteland, the matchup remains quite good but stop trolling on our metagame when you don't know at all what you are talking about.

We can read your reports every weeks following what's going on in the US, according to this displayed hatred against french and frenchies i m pretty sure you have never noticed we just had our great final event with the top 64 french players, won by AnT vs Gob R/B. Then that the side event legacy at GP Paris with 170 players was won by BantLoam vs FEB.

does ichorid ever want to draw first?

like how many times have you had a 7-card hand with a dredger, land, and breakthrough, and the other 4 are irrelevant. wouldn't you want to discard that dredger EOT and then breakthrough turn 2?

Answering the question quite simply, no.

And now at length:

Ichorid doesn't want to draw first in a situation in which you can choose to play first. If you win the die roll, decide to go first. Honestly, I'm not sure a deck that would willingly go second. Being on the play in many circumstances is a huge advantage to most decks especially with (and mostly because) so much daze/control exists in the format. If you're on the draw, and they drop an island - you can pretty much assume your breakthrough will be dazed and you're yet another turn behind.

Ichorid being a semi-to-mostly combo deck (depending on your build and opinion) going sooner is always better.

Assuming I won game one (am thusly on the draw game two) and I now know what I'm up against, I might keep a hand like that. Getting my anti-hate card (usually chain of vapor when I don't know what hate they're bringing) certainly ups the chances too.

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Originally Posted by Spaced Ghost

Answering the question quite simply, no.

And now at length:

Ichorid doesn't want to draw first in a situation in which you can choose to play first. If you win the die roll, decide to go first. Honestly, I'm not sure a deck that would willingly go second. Being on the play in many circumstances is a huge advantage to most decks especially with (and mostly because) so much daze/control exists in the format. If you're on the draw, and they drop an island - you can pretty much assume your breakthrough will be dazed and you're yet another turn behind.

Ichorid being a semi-to-mostly combo deck (depending on your build and opinion) going sooner is always better.

Assuming I won game one (am thusly on the draw game two) and I now know what I'm up against, I might keep a hand like that. Getting my anti-hate card (usually chain of vapor when I don't know what hate they're bringing) certainly ups the chances too.

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If you're not DDDing after you see an Island, you're doing it wrong - the entire point of going 2nd is that you're never 3 turns behind after a Force of Will and you're a turn ahead vs aggro because you have Threshold for Coliseum. Granted, I haven't played Ichorid in a really long time, but I don't see how the fundamentals could've changed that much. My turn 1 win % was always higher on the draw vs aggro-control.

I'm fairly new to LED ichorid, and I had a quick question.

When recurring ichorids with bridges in the yard every turn and slow rolling, how does one usually play when the opponent always leaves a smaller creature to block, like say nimble mongoose? Attacking with the ichorids seems counterintuitive, because one will lose their bridges. But when you just recur ichorid and let him die every turn for tokens, at what point would you drop the plan and just attack?

What is the best course of action in these sort of situations? I'm probably just over thinking this, and playing too protectively.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

If you're not DDDing after you see an Island, you're doing it wrong - the entire point of going 2nd is that you're never 3 turns behind after a Force of Will and you're a turn ahead vs aggro because you have Threshold for Coliseum. Granted, I haven't played Ichorid in a really long time, but I don't see how the fundamentals could've changed that much. My turn 1 win % was always higher on the draw vs aggro-control.

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So you would choose to go second if you won the die roll?

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Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust

When recurring ichorids with bridges in the yard every turn and slow rolling, how does one usually play when the opponent always leaves a smaller creature to block, like say nimble mongoose? Attacking with the ichorids seems counterintuitive, because one will lose their bridges. But when you just recur ichorid and let him die every turn for tokens, at what point would you drop the plan and just attack?

What is the best course of action in these sort of situations? I'm probably just over thinking this, and playing too protectively.

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Attack with a bunch of tokens for a turn or two because they won't kill a 3/3 goose. Try some cabal therapy action with the ichorids. When you smell blood turn everything sideways. Honestly it depends a lot on what cards he's trying to draw, but that's the advice that popped in my head right away, since your question implies that DR on anything isn't possible (slow rollin).

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Originally Posted by TotallySweet

Attack with a bunch of tokens for a turn or two because they won't kill a 3/3 goose. Try some cabal therapy action with the ichorids. When you smell blood turn everything sideways. Honestly it depends a lot on what cards he's trying to draw, but that's the advice that popped in my head right away, since your question implies that DR on anything isn't possible (slow rollin).

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What if it is a 1/1?

Depends on the # of ichorids in the yard, their food, and how many bridges we're talking about losing. Also, # of tokens out. And their life. And cards in their hand. And if you have a discard outlet available. And the cards in your hand. Consider that one ichorid will trade with the goose and you'll get x tokens. Unfortunately, playing ichorid well isn't a list of correct decisions but a fluid cost benefit analysis.

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Originally Posted by TotallySweet

So you would choose to go second if you won the die roll?

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Yes, the original Ichorid, the manaless Serum Powder version, drew regardless of its die roll. Current Ichorid isn't much different, altho' less LED dependent, it's still exploiting LED/Threshold and uncounterable Dredging as much as possible. Slow rolling DDD with the ability to accelerate later is often better than accelerating and being set behind 3 turns for trying to "go go go" like Storm Combo, because you can Therapy FoW/Daze and "catch up" or you're simply inevitable.

I think you lose more games by getting FoWed than you do by DDDing vs aggro-control, and vs aggro you're combo so who cares?

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

I think you lose more games by getting FoWed than you do by DDDing vs aggro-control, and vs aggro you're combo so who cares?

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I completely agree. The idea occurred to me in the playoffs of a tournament, and letting control go first has worked out great. You always get to DDD, and the number of keepable hands increases dramatically.

And yes, I would choose to go second if I won the die roll and knew my opponent was playing control.

This may be a newbie question, but when you flashback dread return with 1 bridge from below in the GY, do the sac'd creatures go to the GY simultaneously yielding 3 zombie tokens?

Also when you trade in combat, whose creature hits the GY first? Or does this happen simultaneously still resulting in zombie tokens?

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Originally Posted by Jayzonious

This may be a newbie question, but when you flashback dread return with 1 bridge from below in the GY, do the sac'd creatures go to the GY simultaneously yielding 3 zombie tokens?

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Yes

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Originally Posted by Jayzonious

Also when you trade in combat, whose creature hits the GY first? Or does this happen simultaneously still resulting in zombie tokens?

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You may choose to get the tokens and then remove Bridges.

@ Breathweapon and Kuma consequently

My post may have been poorly worded to imply I'm against the EOT Discard strategy against control. This isn't true.

I guess I did answer Stacker improperly though as his question was "does ichorid ever want to draw first." In which case you guys nailed it. There are situations in which Ichorid likes drawing first. My answer was sort of abrupt and slightly beside the point.

When you have just won the die roll, and have to decide to go first or draw first, you don't know what your hand will be or even what deck you'll play against (especially in a blind meta where your performance truly matters). The decks you beat, you beat regardless. And the decks you have a favorable but not auto-win against you still beat about as easily on the play a you do the draw. I lump control in that category. Favorable match-up, but they can beat you though are not likely to pre-board. Quite frankly they can't counter as many things as they need to to stop Ichorid from winning and will most likely end up slow rolled with zombies. It is against our unfavorable match-ups that we need to go first though.

I don't think a control deck has ever beat me pre-board,on the play or draw. Not to be confused with "my own deck hasn't beaten me."

All that aside, and more back on the topic of force being totally lame. I don't mind Force as much as I do stifle. Force of Will they're out two cards, and a life. I'm okay with that. Ichorid is inevitability against most control, I'll probably do exactly what was countered again very soon. It's the damn stifle on the Coliseum that pisses me off.

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Originally Posted by Kuma

I completely agree. The idea occurred to me in the playoffs of a tournament, and letting control go first has worked out great. You always get to DDD, and the number of keepable hands increases dramatically.

And yes, I would choose to go second if I won the die roll and knew my opponent was playing control.

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Yeah, I'm surprised it's either been overlooked or forgotten, I respect Parcher's 75 for putting up numbers, but I think it's theoretically sub-optimal to play Unmask MD and go first. The only game you should be going first is game 3, where the match is decided by Unmask.

This is a list that just made top8 in a 50 people tournament.

4 Underground Sea
4 Cephalid Coloseum
3 Watery Grave

4 PImp
4 SImp
4 GGT
4 Narco
3 Ichorid
2 Golgari Thug
1 FKZ
1 Akroma (white)
1 Sphinx

4 LED
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge
4 Careful Study
3 Cabal T.
3 DR
3 DA

side:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Unmask
4 CoV
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chosen

Personally I never liked careful study, but can see it's utilities, and I think Cabal Therapy must be a 4 of.
As for the side I like the idea of 2 more bounce spells, but that's it.

Comments and thoughts?
I have to add that the player is really skilled and good btw..