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And this is coming from the guy who said I shouldn't ever give a small series of playtesting games (against TES) any value whatsoever, who's now validating his deck on one mirror-match.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeathwingZERO
For the record, I playtested combo again. Almost 20 games against a good TES player, and got above the 50% border. The only way that was possible were the 4-5 turn 1 LED/Breakthrough kills.
Yeah youre right I could do this, but I simply do not have the time or the need to since the conclusion is very obvious. The only reason Im speaking up is because I do not like to see clear falsities perpetrated about the deck, since less experienced players may actually believe them. There is no way cutting spells that draw 4 and 2 cards in favor of a card that draws 1 card does not slow down the deck, its really as simple as that.Quote:
Originally Posted by CorruptedAngel
T.T
To each to his own then. All that matters to me is that you win and have fun playing the deck. These variations really help in improving the deck, but to say whether one list is superior over the other is really far off. Even to the point that people berate other people's comments on the deck without testing them out first themselves. Nobody here has a "PhD on Ichorid", or that they have mastered Legacy to the point that what they say about it comes out as bible truth.
Factors such as consistency, speed, disruption, etc. are not controllable anyway, you can just improve the chances of things happening your way by having a specific list that caters to the factors that you want to improve / rely on for the deck.
If you get a bad draw, no deck list is gonna help you. Luck still factors into every game, no matter how good you are; or how good your list is. I'm not saying that we rely on luck. No, just stick to the effective build that you're comfortable with and have fun. As with with what PulpFiction said, I don't care how or when I win a legacy game, just so long as I do and with consistency.
That's why I'm sticking with a variation of DeathwingZero's build. I get multiple draws from 0-1cc draw spells, tricks that SW can bring to a game, and still retain explosiveness in the combo while having the option to aggro if the plan is disrupted. It's its consistency that make it so reliable in games and tournaments. Sure, I still get the rare bad hand, but hey, who doesn't.
If a different build (LED / DA, etc.) or a different deck (TES, etc.) altogether outraces me, then fine, good job to the player who beat me. But as long as I am winning with the list, and I'm having fun doing so, then I'm happy.
Sometimes, us MTG players get too serious about winning or in making a point. As long as it doesn't feel like I'm taking crazy pills to convince other people about my ideas, then I'm fine and happy. ^________^ I'm just a humble MTG player who's having fun with this deck.
And as CorruptedAngel said, I hope people who have a very high level of play skill / experience on this deck do some testing of their own with the different lists. Multiperson testing is a good way to bring up solid points on these experiments on the different builds.
Let me clarify a few points:
1. I never commented on any specific build, only on the inclusion of certain cards in Ichorid over the omission of others.
2. Goldfishing means absolutely nothing. Seriously.
Even disregarding the non-opponent related distractions that are guaranteed at tournaments, there are literally thousands of little things different opponents with different decks can do to alter your game; even against such a non-interactive deck like Ichorid. Something as simple as burning their own creature in response to a Dread Return, or a Turn One Thoughtseize on your only discard outlet. These are commonplace, and impossible to adequately replicate outside of actual games.
My thoughts on the comparable card combinations are this:
- Breakthrough draws twice as many cards as any offered alternative.
- DA allows you to Dredge twice with no cards in hand, and no lands in play. Again, no comparable alternative.
- LED is an irreplaceable discard outlet.
- To wit, both Careful Study and Street Wraith require Dredgers in the Graveyard for them to function. Using Careful Study as a discard outlet is by definition, a slower option.
- Neither Careful Study, nor Street Wraith produce mana. They can not pay for Tabernacle, Ghostly Prison, etc.
- A turn one win is impossible, and a turn two win is mathematically impossible without Breakthrough or LED. Regardless of whether required or not, faster is better.
- LED allows you to activate Coliseum with no other lands in play. On the draw, this happens turn one.
- While uncommon, Breakthrough can actually draw you additional cards. Careful Study cannot, and Street Wraith breaks even, minus two life.
While I'm certain there is more I cannot think of at the moment, a quick listing like this should make obvious the superiority of certain cards over others in conjunction with the normal functions of this deck. This does not necessarily mean that the deck with function better with one combination or the other; Magic is a complex combination of ever shifting variables. Ichorid however is deck built to abuse a broken mechanic. Playing the cards that most powerfully use this at the lowest cost, and in the shortest amount of given turns seems the best plan.
Let me put this into perspective, so people understand where I am coming from.
The only differences are as follows:
Parcher's list:
-4 LED
-1 Narcomoeba
-2 Deep Analysis
-2 Breakthrough
My list:
+4 Street Wraith
+1 Cephalid Coliseum
+4 Careful Study
Now, let me give an idea of what the deck's synergies are:
Parcher's list:
Discard outlets (not counting EoT):
4x LED
4x PImp
3x Coliseum
4x Breakthrough
3x Unmask
4x Therapy
Total: 22
Mine:
4x PImp
4x Coliseum
2x Breakthrough
3x Unmask
4x Therapy
4x Careful Study
Total: 21
Draw engine (not counting turn):
Parcher:
3x Coliseum
4x Breakthrough
2x Deep
Total: 9
Mine:
4x Coliseum
2x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
4x Street Wraith
Total: 14
Numbers based on Dredge potential/card:
Parcher:
3x Coliseum (3/card)
4x Breakthrough (4/card)
2x Deep (2/card)
Total: 9 cards @ 3.23/card average
Mine:
4x Coliseum (3/card)
4x Careful Study (2/card)
4x Street Wraith (1/card)
2x Breakthrough (4/card)
Total: 14 cards @ 2.28/card average
So he averages 1 card per draw "spell" over me, as well as an additional way to discard (either his entire hand, or what Breakthrough allows him to keep). But I beat him out on having 5 more ways to dredge, 4 of which are free. And I never have to discard my entire hand, other than 2 of my Breakthrough's going at 0. This allows me to use those 5 extra draw potential to my advantage, and that's what keeps the numbers so similar.
Actual testing brought about these results, not just saying "I have more draw, so that means I dredge more often, amirite???!?!!?" I will never post numbers I have without proper testing.
In all honesty, I welcome people to actually test both decks, and see what you like to do. If you want to play more draw spells while keeping a hand and going off in a less bombtastic way, test my build a bit. If you want to do the all-or-nothing explosion, do that. But the speed of both decks is fundamentally the same, so that's not going to factor in at all for game 1. However, for games 2 and 3, my engine is much more stable, and allows to dig for answers much more reliably. His gets a little more of a push to combo out when he does have answers, though that will more than likely change when I put in my 3rd Breakthrough.
I'm validating nothing. I'm saying that I was able to race an LED and Breakthrough abusing version, and that was almost all reliant on how dredge worked, and my ability to rip his hand first. For the most part, that is how the mirror will work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayk0l
As far as the TES matchup goes, I'm sure a number of people on here would like to see your results. Talking with Anwar, Edgewalker, and other Ichorid players in the area, most have considered the matchup a wash in it's entirety, unless you can race. That's not enough to make the matchup 50% though. Luck with drege is EVERYTHING here. I've just told both Anwar and Edgewalker if I see TES, I'm going to consider it a wash with my build. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to adapt.
As for you, I won't be responding to anymore of your posts until you actually DO take the time out to test them. This post makes you look like nothing more than an arrogant and ignorant prick. I'd suggest you put a little more faith into the actual results than what's written on paper. You may be genuinely surprised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tenant_Tron
I have plenty of people that even post here who can attest that I've put in weeks worth of man hours on this build, over the past 10 months. I put in 30 hours alone on the "100 game ones" test. From the sound of it, you may have done a fraction of that.
@ Parcher: You came in before I got this reply out, so I'm not going to be able to put in a very forward reply as I'm a little pressed for time. As far as goldfishing goes, it proved to me the deck is capable of the same speed. That's all I cared about proving to myself. As far as actual play, yes, subtleties make all the difference. However, I never see Tabernacle. I see Extirpate rarely (one in 10, maybe a dozen decks per tournament?). I mostly don't see much graveyard hate to begin with games 2 and 3, and when I do it's with already unfavorable matches. And while we accomplish the same goal, we play very, very differently. However, I find mine much more attuned to my style of play, and that's the biggest reason I play it. I am merely suggesting if people like to play my version, speed is not an issue. I'm capable of a turn 2 combo (albeit that is almost absolutely reliant on luck of the dredge), and turn 3 is consistent. That really is good enough for my metagame.
Without LED we are making our match-ups against Stax, TES and Painter (which are recently adding Trinisphere) even worst to play against. Stax and TES are already bad match-ups for us. Why are we making our worst matchups worst? I can't seem to buy the cutting LED idea.
Recently I find that I rather cut out all the Careful Study rather than Breakthrough. They work so similar to each other. Granted that Breakthrough does not let you keep your hand.......but y would you keep it anyways? I usually cast Breakthrough second turn and find that I only find the lands in my hand useful. Other cards like Unmask/Imp/LED can be cast first and SW can be cycled for free. With this said y is everyone cutting Breakthrough over Careful Study?
After toying around with Deathwing's build, I must say, it doesn't have a turn 1 win, but it has to mulligan a HELL of alot less
I don't see how having 1 more actual land and 4 less "one shot" mana sources makes the Stax matchup worse. Chances are if you are using that LED as a mana source, it's to pay for either a creature's upkeep cost, or swinging. If that's the case, chances are it's swinging into a body, and none of our creatures have trample. In this scenario, I would take lands hand over fist against LED, seeing as they can be used more often (and to actually cast the bounce spells you sided in). Islands in the sideboard also keep them from being able to Wastelock you, and still cast answers. The only cards I am honestly afraid of against White Stax are multiple Prison effects, or Smokestack and Armageddon.Quote:
Originally Posted by whitshadw8
And no, Study and Breakthrough are not the same. Study is literally a U Bazaar of Baghdad. Draw 2, discard 3. In an opening hand, you'll still have cards in hand after it's cast. Breakthrough, however, is a draw 4 combined with a mind twist set to your hand size, just not random discard. As far as the dredge goes, they play the same. Their function though, is not. Study stays in post board to dig. Breakthrough doesn't.
And I've talked about TES already. With or without LED, it's a very uphill battle. It's a wash, and chances are you'll see one (maybe two) at any significant tournament. Hope they get knocked out by control decks designed to beat them, because they are the same that aren't designed to beat you. If you do have to play them, it's a race. I know I'm not going to see the deck, so my version's numbers against it mean nothing to me. If you risk seeing multiple TES builds though, I'd suggest something different. There's nothing you can tune your SB to in order to make you faster, and your disruption is the only thing able to slow them down.
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Colisuem
4 City of Brass
4 ichorid
4 bridge from below
4 golgari grave troll
4 stinkweed imp
3 golgari thug
4 street wraith
4 careful study
2 lions eye diamond(yes, only 2)
2 deep analysis
4 cabal therapy
2 breakthrough
1 cephalid sage
1 flame kin zealot
2 dread return
4 putrid imp
4 narcomoeba
this is a blend of both worlds. Although it does not run unmask(which I find to be good in certain situations, but all and all I think the deck can live without unmask). This list can win turn 1, but has the steady ichorid recurrance that street wraith provides(I have had ALOT more turn 2/3 ichorid plays due to wraith being in here). Ive put this through a number of games and it seems to mull less than the traditional LED/Breakthrough lists. I love LED, and breakthrough, but dumping your entire hand has always seemed sketchy for me. I feel this has good balance, and can combo turn one if it has the right cards
Another thing about LED is that it helps you postboard as well, because it allows you, in g3, to have the ability to race hate, not just counter it. SW can't lay claim to that.
in most cases LED would be the first thing to take out in game 2/3
Talk to anybody running LED about where it is in games 2 and 3. Generally speaking, it's not there. Aside from the combo in most cases, LED and sometimes Breakthrough are the first things getting taken out. You can't race Leyline, and you can't race a well timed Extirpate. LED plays into both of those cards VERY easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozymandias
EDIT: @Bruenor: I'd stick with Unmask in the main. It alongside Therapy are pretty much the only way you are going to stick anything against TES or Stax, and often times will help you with ditching dredge cards you need to if your opponent cannot hinder you. LED is generally a 4 of or 0 of, 2 wouldn't make it seen often enough to break it (first or second turn). Also, if you want to use Wraith to power out Ichorids more often, I'd put in the 4th Coliseum over the 4th Narcomoeba. They tend to clot up your hand when drawn, and 3 is enough to see them fast when dredging into the combo kill. I've yet to miss the 4th one, unless I'm in a war of attrition and my yard was nuked.
Actually LED is the second most boarded card, with Unmask being the first. That's the main reason not to run it in the sideboard. Unless your opponent is running Daze and Force, or Storm Combo, they come out. LED is next, for reasons already stated.
Breakthrough however, does not come out. The reason being that you can still use it to race, and to find answers. The problem with Street Wraith, and to a lesser degree Careful Study in post-SB games, is that they give a false sense of control. Against a deck packing Leyline, you have to open with an answer. Hoping to draw into it is a way to gain an easy loss. I've mullinganed first-turn win hands, simply because I knew from the way my opponent mulliganed that they had it. Breakthrough stays because it allows you to overcome the card disadvantage from doing this with raw speed and power.
EDIT: I guess that would be where the largest difference lies. One version has a better chance of finding answers, but cannot capitalize on that due to to relative power loss inherent in that consistency. The other has to shred it's hand to find answers, but if it does without crippling itself completely will win even faster due to it's opponent castrating their offense with hate.
WOW, out of 20 games you got 4-5 turn 1 kills?? This is ridiculous, why would you make up results about fake playtesting?? Dredge shows up quite frequently in my meta and I have NEVER seen or heard of anyone doing turn 1 kills. One person who used to play the deck (braves, who sold the deck after the tournament because he hated the inconsistencies) got a turn 1 kill ONCE in the 2-4 times he brought the deck. Personally I have NEVER had a turn 1 kill with the LED build and don't go into "well you don't know how to play the deck right" and all that shit because I certainly know how to play Dredge. Thats not how it is, you have to get a great hand and dredge REALLY good to get a turn 1 kill. With average person luck (which I don't have) you should kill on turn 1 maybe once out of 30-40 games. Dredge does not kill on turn 1 25% of the time, its way less than that. Now turn 2 is a whole different story but ... turn 1?? No, I don't believe that for a second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayk0l
I'm actually used to keeping in the 2 Breakthroughs post-board, just because they do keep me explosive while using Study or Wraith to dig. I think if I had more, I'd probably cut back to 2 just to have them, but not be heavily reliant on them.
With that, I'm still always trying to decide what's the best sideboarding strategy for most games. I like keeping in Wraith, because Ichorid beats > Narcomoeba ones, when I've pitched the combo to the board. I also like to keep Study, for digging without losing too much to Leyline if that's what I'm trying to answer. I've only sided in 13 cards once so far, but that was hell trying to determine it. I even had to try keeping in 2 DR for the Titan I brought in, which made things even more insane on my decisions.
Im not saying my list is definite yet, but the 2 LED actually comes in wuite handy. Only running 2 makes room for more cards(study/wraith) and can "get into" awesome plays. The 2 may not always get into your opening hand, but when they do they usually matchup with the other 2 ofs I run(breakthrough/analysis). When running 4 I was getting double LED and nothing effective to do with them, which made them disappointing. I feel comfortable with my list at the moment since it still allows for the turn 1 win. and has a HIGH percentage of turn 2-3. Im not saying its a perfect choice, but wraith is MAKING my list work by pumping out ichorid earlier than I have ever seen it happen. I am quite happy at the moment with him in the deck. The loss of Unmask seems tolerable in favor of explosiveness
Then it depends on each player's style then, choosing between consistency and explosiveness... Which is a dilemma for almost every deck with a combo aspect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Parcher
From all the different changes I've gone through, it seems that the combo lists especially evolve based solely on metagames. Mine allows for me to not abuse LED and Breakthrough to power out fast wins, but to steamroll through from turn 1 on into a zombie apocalypse. It's kinda like the Living Dead series, turn 1 is Night, turn 2 is Dawn, turn 3 is Day, and if for some godawful reason I haven't killed them by turn 4, it's definitely Land of the Dead. They just haven't joined the ranks yet :DQuote:
Originally Posted by bruenor
And ya, I'm a consistency whore. I've never felt like a giddy little schoolgirl nearly as much as I did piloting Dragon and to a lesser extent IGGy Pop. I think that's why I never really liked TES/Solidarity (and had so much trouble crafting TJS back in the day), was that randomly you'd just stop. Storm combo decks in general have that flaw. Dragon often got out of that by abusing the hell out of Lim Dul's Vault, and IGGy just went Intuition -> Wincon X. I'd say Ichorid plays a lot more like Dragon, just throwing things away until they come back to bite the opponent in the ass.
And the LED based explosive versions are more like Belcher with Zombies instead of Goblins.
Funny how replacing around 10 cards in the deck can change it so much.
EDIT: I hope there's something from Shards which could help the deck out. I've been hoping that ever since I found out that one of the "guilds" (I forgot what they're called in the Alara block) focus on the graveyard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulp_Fiction
Yeah, I'm not making it up either. Mulligan to four and win turn 1 isn't impossible either. Granted, you need to get extremely lucky on the dredges (which is also true for a seven-card hand). I don't know if it's luck or what, but I've seen it often at tournaments as well. Actually, there's a tournament report from an Ichorid player here on the Source who describes winning his first three rounds getting I believe around 3-4 turn 1 kills.
It also matters that I was playing solely against TES: since that deck has almost no disruption or even interaction with what you're playing, you're able to just (or better: have to) keep the broken hands that would die against FoW and just throw it on the table the first Main Phase you get.
Without disruption there are numerous ways of getting turn 1 Kills. Any hand with a LED and a Breakthrough (+ land), Coliseum (gg. if you hit DA) or DA (+ land to get four mana and hit a second DA) has potential of doing it (again, with lucky dredges). You sometimes (more often than not) have to mulligan to those hands.
If those 20 games were played against a Landstill deck, there would've been maybe 1 turn 1 kill. But since I cannot beat TES with slow hands, I am sort of forced to Mulligan into imba-ness, I guess I got lucky.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think of it, my friend the TES player didn't make T8 in the last tournament because his turn 1 kill on the draw got beaten by Ichorid's turn 1 kill on the play.
I have to admit, in any other not-so-suicidal MU's, I've only had a turn 1 kill on a very rare occasion like you said.