[Deck] Ichorid

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Originally Posted by Brehn

Do you stack your deck or how come you always have LED?

In case you still don't get it: It makes no sense arguing "Crypts are raced with Study + LED". Even with 4 Studies, 4 Breakthroughs and 4 LEDs this is way too improbable to rely on. You don't see people arguing in the T.E.S. thread "Counterbalance is played around by a Chant-protected Turn 1 Kill", do you?


This is now directed at both BreathWeapon and Bane of the Living: Do you actually take mulligans?
Sometimes you end up with 6, 5 or 4 cards because the deck screws you. "Land, Dredger, blank, blank, blank". If one of the blanks is P.Imp, the hand is keepable. If it's Nether Shadow or Street Wraith you go to 4. I think I said it earlier: Playing cards like Nether Shadow or Street Wraith speeds up the deck while sacrificing consistency.
"DDD" or "EOT Discard" doesn't work after mulliganing. It's a double/triple/quadruple Time Walk.


Wrong. :b:, Discard your hand: Target opponent discards a removal spell or counter of his or her choice. Street Wraith is Pay 2 life: If the engine is already running, dredge 6. Otherwise, draw Flame-Kin Zealot or some other crap. Conclusion: Imp > Wraith.

UGH. Strongly disagree.
- Has a hard time beating combo. Check.
- Wins against control. Check.
- Wins in the "Combat Damage Step" and tries to do so fast. Check.
- Doesn't like: StoP, Deed, Wrath. Check.
Ichorid is a fast aggro deck with synergistic cards. Just like Goblins. Only that it's faster, recovers more easily after mass removal and dies to some different hate.


Sorry, but that sounds a lot like: "I play Wraith because I don't know how to sideboard with other lists." If I board out 4 P.Imps (or whatever I play in your SW-slot) with my list, it's exactly the same.

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Of course I take mulligans, theyre a fine point to your success. If you dont understand that a hand will completely crumble to a crumble to something like Goblin Lackey your not gonna get far in the tournament.

I rarely find myself in the triple timewalk games. Infact I found I only really had those when I was testing Serum Powder. Sometimes its a mistake to not keep your 7 card hand if it has enough juice in it but no outlet. Ill give you an example.

Putrid Imp
Street Wraith
Troll
Stinkweed
Cabal Therapy
Deep Analysis
Dread Return

If you dont keep this hand normally Id like you to consider the possibility of finding a good 6 card hand that can evade hate cards. At six cards your already gonna give your opponent a timewalk if its just as bad as the above hand. If you have mana/LED/outlet combo then you can attempt to start rolling but if you opponent has a way to stop you the whole game can be lost. Look at this..

City of Brass
PImp
Stinky
Deep Analysis
Dread Return
Narcomeaba

This is our 6 card hand that fumbles to Force, Daze, Mogg Fanatic, Swords to Plowshares. But not Crypt (oh boy). It will surely lose to goblins since they can Waste your land after killing your imp.

Sometimes you can work yourself into a 6-4 card hand that has mana/LED/outlet and a Therapy to clear the way or a hand with LEDx2 or LED + PImp. Thats why this deck is so good, it can be invulnerable to all hate. But the possibility of crafting a hand like that sometimes isnt worth the sacrifice of DDD.

Now lets return to the above 7 card hand..

Putrid Imp
Street Wraith
Troll
Stinkweed
Cabal Therapy
Deep Analysis
Dread Return

This hand has alot going for it. If your on the play you replace Street Wraith with the top card of your deck. You have 16/53 cards that will allow you a safe combo passage. If you on the draw your really in good shape, you go draw discard but if you have a hand this loaded you can safely take a draw phase or two to find your LED or land. Keeping the dredger in the yard to bait crypts. Street Wraith in this senario can make up for the lake of dredging for a turn or so while you dig for the card you need. Like I said its also an amazing way to bait crypt activations.

If you go to discard for a couple turns you can pitch the Therapy and almost always trigger an enemy crypt.
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Why do I care if my opponent "loses" a removal spell to take care of the imp? Removal is worthless against the deck for what its worth thanks to recurring growing armies. Swords to Plowshares for instance is really only effective when its hitting the Imp your talking about. What good is a creatre you expect to die?

You nearly always have a Dredger in the graveyard are you honestly calling Street Wraith win more? lol

This deck doesnt have a hard time beating combo. Id say most combo is evenly matched. You can race them since your just as fast or faster, you have more copies of Cabal Therapy than any other deck, and post board you have Chalice of the Void to help too.

The only combo decks that dont use the combat phase are Solidarity and Tendrils decks that forsake Empty the Warrens. (why would they?)

Ichorid loves Wrath of God. Its four mana, if your not dead by the time I surely Therapied it out of your hand. StP is only good if your play you bank on PImp too much. Deed is slow, only effective against zombie tokens, and can be Therapied before turn 3..

Ichorid is a combo deck.

Are you really telling me the because Street Wraith is a great card to sb out I dont know how to sb with this deck.?? Bane of the Living?

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Originally Posted by Bane of the Living

Putrid Imp
Street Wraith
Troll
Stinkweed
Cabal Therapy
Deep Analysis
Dread Return

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This hand is perfectly keepable in most matchups. I'm not arguing against that.
Still, sometimes you have to take mulligans. If you play 11 dredgers, the probability of not finding one in your opening 7 cards is 22.24%. So at least 1 out of 5 hands will get sent back.

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City of Brass
PImp
Stinky
Deep Analysis
Dread Return
Narcomeaba

This is our 6 card hand that fumbles to Force, Daze, Mogg Fanatic, Swords to Plowshares. But not Crypt (oh boy). It will surely lose to goblins since they can Waste your land after killing your imp.

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While this hand is not very good, it's not horrible either. It doesn't necessarily fumble to Fanatic and Swords, if you're lucky enough to have a dredger in your top 5 cards (the probability of this being 61.37%, assuming 11 dredgers in the deck). Now replace the Putrid Imp with a Street Wraith and you'll see that you have the choice of either a double Time Walk or going down to 5. Point taken?

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Swords to Plowshares for instance is really only effective when its hitting the Imp your talking about. What good is a creatre you expect to die?

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I prefer my Ichorids not to get sworded. Maybe it's just me.

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You nearly always have a Dredger in the graveyard are you honestly calling Street Wraith win more? lol

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Umm.... yep?

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This deck doesnt have a hard time beating combo. Id say most combo is evenly matched. You can race them since your just as fast or faster, you have more copies of Cabal Therapy than any other deck, and post board you have Chalice of the Void to help too.

The only combo decks that dont use the combat phase are Solidarity and Tendrils decks that forsake Empty the Warrens. (why would they?)

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What? You're actually saying that combo is "evenly matched"? Find some semi-competent TES/Belcher/SI players and test. Not to mention those nasty Iggy Pop builds with maindeck Leylines.

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Are you really telling me the because Street Wraith is a great card to sb out I dont know how to sb with this deck.?? Bane of the Living?

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I told you that it sounds like you don't know how to sideboard. Telling me "A reason to play Wraith is that you know what to sideboard out" lead to this comment. There's no difference between playing Wraiths and siding them out and playing other cards and siding them out, so that's hardly a good argument.

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Originally Posted by Bane of the Living

Now lets return to the above 7 card hand..

Putrid Imp
Street Wraith
Troll
Stinkweed
Cabal Therapy
Deep Analysis
Dread Return

This hand has alot going for it. If your on the play you replace Street Wraith with the top card of your deck. You have 16/53 cards that will allow you a safe combo passage.

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But if the Street Wraith is any card not named Street Wraith, then you know whether or not it's correct to mulligan the hand. If it's Street Wraith, you don't. If you draw an opening seven with a Street Wraith, you're essentially drawing an opening hand of six cards you can see and one you can't. Any time you're missing exactly one element in an opening hand, be it mana, dredgers, or discard, and you have a Street Wraith, over 50% of the time the Street Wraith is not going to get you the missing element you need. But you don't know. You're handicapping yourself, crippling your opening hands, by not knowing what's actually in your opening hand.

By not running Street Wraith, you're running more of the three elements: Mana, Dredgers, or Discard, and thereby you're increasing your chances of not having a missing element in your opening hand. And when you are missing an element, you at least have all the information you need on whether or not to mulligan the hand.

In this case and with that reasoning, I think Tacosnape is right, since the possible options (dredgers, mana, discard, draw) are more divided. In Belcher, Street Wraith is a good card, since you can consider him to be a card that adds mana, since the deck is only win conditions and mana.

Now, for defending the card. I run 2 Street Wraith whereas everybody runs 2 Careful Study or something of that kind. Bane of the Living actually convinced me of doing that by one simple argument: it is a black creature. Running him allows for the slow dredge and more safe path to victory instead of 'comboing out' with Flame-Kin Zealot.

First of all, Street Wraith allows Ichorid to come back more, and ultimately creates more tokens. This happens slowly but surely. If your opponent is packing Crypt or Engineered Explosives, he does not know when to use it exactly, since the loss is not as big if you slow dredge. This is true even if there is no Street Wraith though, but the plan is just more consistent with.

Second, he is uncounterable dredge. This really matters actually. It has happened more than once that my opponent had a chalice at 1 out, I just needed a dredge to win the game, and I was stuck on one land, a Breakthrough or a Careful study in hand... That sucks...

So in short, when I have a hand with Street Wraith in it, I evaluate the hand as if he weren't there, and not by thinking he could be the best thing I will be able to draw, that is just a wrong assumption. For me he is just another chance to dredge.

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Originally Posted by Brehn

Umm.... yep?

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I lol'd! Long and heavy!
Anyway, from my point of view Brehn is right with all the points he made.
I will play this deck in Hassloch the next sunday again and let you guys now how it went.

Street Wraith is a dredge card. Why do people view it as anything different? I see where you guys are coming from in a sense, but I feel as though individuals focus on the ability to cycle it for X card and subsequently get hung up on what X card could be rather then looking at it as free dredge and fodder for Ichorid reanimation. Two purposes it serves quite well in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Ertai's Familiar

Street Wraith is a dredge card. Why do people view it as anything different? I see where you guys are coming from in a sense, but I feel as though individuals focus on the ability to cycle it for X card and subsequently get hung up on what X card could be rather then looking at it as free dredge and fodder for Ichorid reanimation. Two purposes it serves quite well in my opinion.

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Yes even our Legacy Adept Tacosnape assumes you should simply filter a card off the top of your deck with Street Wraith or that "Your only really seeing 6 out of 7 cards." You shouldnt be playing him as the waste of space your used to using him as in Belcher. The Street Wraiths ultimate use is a bluffed dredge. Free and uncounterable. Alot of hate that comes in along side graveyard hate is REB's. Street Wraith can help you tread water against Red decks.

You need to realize that the free Time Walks for your opponent are going to happen no matter what different 4-8 cards are in your version of Ichorid. Street Wraith helps you recover an entire turn off that for a meager 2 life.

Also dont look at it as though Putrid Imp and SW are trying to maintain the same role. Theyre on completely different ends of the spectrum. I personally view PImp as a 3 star card in a 5 star line up. Its not exactly easy to find the room for improvements in this deck but I assure you I will always lead the forefront.

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Originally Posted by Ertai's Familiar

Street Wraith is a dredge card. Why do people view it as anything different? I see where you guys are coming from in a sense, but I feel as though individuals focus on the ability to cycle it for X card and subsequently get hung up on what X card could be rather then looking at it as free dredge and fodder for Ichorid reanimation. Two purposes it serves quite well in my opinion.

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qfft

People put it in belcher for the wrong reasons. this is truly a deck where street wraith shines. it's the *drawing a card* bit for free that matters. you know what that card draw is going to be... it's going to be a grave troll!

Hi guys! I've been playing with this deck lately and I have a question for ya:
What's the right number of Ichorids?
Sorry if this has been asked before but I was looking to the extended lists of the latest GP, and most of them play only 3, and the deck is more or less the the same (well, the legacy version should be a little more faster).

4. Anything else is just wrong.

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Originally Posted by Brehn

4. Anything else is just wrong.

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Fine. But why?
Honestly, I can see very good reasons for running 4 (it's your best chance after the bridges get removed, it creates some tokens every turn...) but also very good reasons to run 3 and fit the fourth PImp or the fourth Careful Study (less mulligans, higher probability of a broken start...).

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Originally Posted by Elfrago

Fine. But why?
Honestly, I can see very good reasons for running 4 (it's your best chance after the bridges get removed, it creates some tokens every turn...) but also very good reasons to run 3 and fit the fourth PImp or the fourth Careful Study (less mulligans, higher probability of a broken start...).

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Bridges get removed horribly fast. And without Ichorids you quickly run out of creatures to die and give you zombies anyway, since you will probably discarding your hand and dredging after the first turns. Narcomoebas alone won't usually give enough zombies for a long game.

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Originally Posted by Elfrago

Hi guys! I've been playing with this deck lately and I have a question for ya:
What's the right number of Ichorids?
Sorry if this has been asked before but I was looking to the extended lists of the latest GP, and most of them play only 3, and the deck is more or less the the same (well, the legacy version should be a little more faster).

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You need 4 in Legacy but it really depends how often you play against Swords to Plowshares. Extended doesnt have it but does normally play Extirpate so playing 3 Ichorids becomes some sort of strategy.

The problem with Extended is everytime the season comes around people try to do stupid bull to legacy decks that actually weakens it. Take Tireless Tribe and Akroma for example. Alot of extended players may find they have a liking for Legacy and try to jump right into the format toting Akroma along with them. Would you have really considered Tireless Tribe 6 months ago?

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Originally Posted by Bane of the Living

You need 4 in Legacy but it really depends how often you play against Swords to Plowshares. Extended doesnt have it but does normally play Extirpate so playing 3 Ichorids becomes some sort of strategy.

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This is a good point. I did not consider StP.:rolleyes: I'll stick with four, since Landistill is, more or less, half of my meta.

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Originally Posted by Elfrago

Fine. But why?
Honestly, I can see very good reasons for running 4 (it's your best chance after the bridges get removed, it creates some tokens every turn...) but also very good reasons to run 3 and fit the fourth PImp or the fourth Careful Study (less mulligans, higher probability of a broken start...).

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Hate to agree with Bane, but he's right. You run 4 Ichorids because you need more Ichorids than your opponents have Swords to Plowshares.

@bane of the living
You posted some hands with you "Street Wraith list", but i wasn't able to find that list, so can you post the list you're referring to? And if your that kind can you post your Sb for a general/unknown meta?

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Originally Posted by gnurbel2000

@bane of the living
You posted some hands with you "Street Wraith list", but i wasn't able to find that list, so can you post the list you're referring to? And if your that kind can you post your Sb for a general/unknown meta?

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Yea Im Pm'd for it constantly, here it is with no disgression since I dont plan on playing it for a bit..

4 LED
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Cephalid Coliseum

2 Putrid Imp
4 Ichorid
3 Street Wraith
4 Narcomeoba
1 Flame Kin Zealot
1 Cephalid Sage

3 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Gravetroll

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
3 Deep Analysis
4 Breakthrough

sb:
4 Leyline of the Void
3-4 Chain of Vapor
4 Chalice of the Void
1-2 Ray of Revelation
0-1 Platinum Angel
0-1 Crippling Fatigue
0-2 Contagion

Crippling Fatigue is against Gaddock Teeg and Contagion for Yixid Jailer. Unfortunalty niether card handles both.. If anyone can think of a better option let me know but regardless I think its important to have some form of spot removal in the current format.

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Originally Posted by Bane of the Living

Crippling Fatigue is against Gaddock Teeg and Contagion for Yixid Jailer. Unfortunalty niether card handles both.. If anyone can think of a better option let me know but regardless I think its important to have some form of spot removal in the current format.

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I've boarded Swords to Plowshares before. It deals with anything, without removing your Bridges. You just have to draw the damn thing.

Darkblast may also be considered. You just start your engine as normal, then dredge it back and keep it as an out to Jailer - for that specific problem, it is better than StP. With the upkeep-dredge-recast trick, it can also kill Gaddock Teeg (though it requires two lands, or a land + a LED to blow up in your upkeep).

Seal of Removal solves the problem of Yixlid Jailer and Gaddock Teeg also. Seal of Removal also can be played before you nerf your entire hand with LED/Breakthrough asshattery, and can be casted off a Cephalid Coliseum. Then you just Therapy whatever you bounce out of their hand.

It can also bounce any of your opponent's creatures that's about to die from combat and eat your Bridges, though Swords to Plowshares similarly fulfills this requirement.

Darkblast would be better if it could kill Teeg without the upkeep trick (Two black is stretching it) and if it didn't eat your Bridges if you happen to get an early one. However, the fact that it at least works as a dredger makes it an option.