ichorid is aggro/combo. Making it into a aggro/combo deck that is consistent and stable is what Parcher is looking for, as well should you.
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I don't know if this is necesary needed. Running sadistic + EW besides de FKS we can use 1 DR targeting the circunstantial creature. If it's EW we go for the combo if not because it's sadistic just screw your opponent for the win...i think that although this is a bit risky i has sense and deserves be tested. I will -1 Unmask, +1 SH for the test.
And on the other hand...what did you lead to make this side??
The thing is Sadistic wins/slows the game with acess to very few creatures. FKZ needs a lot of good stuff to be lethal.
Sadistic looks very interesting against control decks that play few threats and rely on countermagic. Against any deck if you can blow their hands before they can play some gamebreaking card, you're in a pretty good spot.
I think it's a matter of taste/metagame. I like the trio FKZ/Sage/Woodfall Primus, it does all I need them to do but kill creatures.
Why Woodfall over Angel of Despair? Angel takes out creatures as well, is black and flies. Does persist really outweigh those? Sure if you can Woodfall you could hit two non-creature targets, but that is probably unnecessary and requires a sac outlet. Also the most common removal is StP which renders persist useless anyways.
I've playtested against my friends Enchantress deck a bunch and Angel is always a house. Flies over moat, destroys Elephant Grass/Solitary, is less easily chumped (except by Angel tokens, though if they have a bunch of those, you've probably lost).
I think being able to take out 2 troublesome permanents is very relevant. There are times when a single propaganda/ghostly prison has gained the opponent enough time to play a second one. Additionally, Primus combos better with the deck: you can make upwards of an additional 8 zombie tokens with the guy. Often I will Dread return him, nuke a land, sac him to therapy, nuke another land (meaning an epic top deck might not be playable), ac him to a second therapy (thereby ruining the opponent's hand) and produce enough tokens with him to swing for the kill the following turn. I rarely ever swing with the primus, and if I get enough tokens, opposing creatures are not an issue.
I'm not sure if a third creature is really needed. At first glance the solid options are: EW (for me, CS for other) and FKZ. This is because of gravehate post side, ichorid MUST win the first game of a round and i think that this both creatures are really needed.
About the third guy...well i'm not sure which is the best, probably the answer would be none, but i have my choise for the side of sadistic hypnotist. This is because its ability is "always useful" discard your hand and put tokens (or not) or your opo hand and put tokens (or not) if something that is always good, maybe (depending on the situation) not optimal, but good. Woodfall/DAngel are good option as well but if we don't want an awful permanent we have the choice on the therapies, unmask or, in my case the sadistic (our "unmask" with legs).
It just has better synergy with the Bridges/Cabal Therapy and sometimes you can just use to trash all your opponents lands and deny him any chance of victory. Trample also is relevant, if you trashed 2 non-creature permanents why does your opponent has Moat? In the end of the day it's just about 2 bring > than 1 and persist. While being the most common used removal, it's not in every deck and it makes the Angel looks just as silly.
When you get the hypnotist out and get your opponent down to 1 or 2 cards, do you sac the hypnotist to himself (to get zombies) or do you keep him alive and make then discard again next turn?
you would hopefully have a bridge from below or two in your grave when you use hypnotist. sacking tokensto bring them to hopefully no cards then if they hold onto their drawn card the next turn, bringing back ichorids for a swing then sacking them to hypnotist and gaining tokens again would be the preferred way to win
Unless it's after turn four I'd sac him to get all the cards.Odds are that their last card is a bomb, or a land. And Therapy can get a bomb.
So...our disruption equip is:
4 Cabal therapy
3 Unmask
1 Sadistic hypnotist
?
@Parcher: Are you running EW again together with SH? or you are still running 2 SH?
What about the FKZ?
I still don't understand why you want to replace the Witness + FKZ with 2 Sadistic Hypnotists. The situation where you dont get enough tokens with FKZ is very rare, and if the situation will appear, you can DR a big troll and sac the tokens you gain to CT. Hypnotist < Topdeckskills/Brainstorm/Ponder/SDT/...
Also, the lack of Witness won't let you return SB cards when you need them, I don't see why you would play without this possibility.
Running Tribe together with PImp, instead of GG, to fight Relic/Crypt is very interesting. I will certainly test it.
I must say I loved the sadistic guys, for being so sadistic and they are most of the time always a win.
But I've also encountered some situations in which I so badly wanted the witness and had to think harder to get my head out of without.
Also playing around crypt is piece of a cake.
Slowdredging often forces them to break it in unrelevant situations, and the tribes enable a better "slow-dredge" game.
I really like the sideboard, but want to try those gargadons when my playset arrives.
Chinqui
I have been looking at the last few posts, and i see that Witness has been getting nothing but compliments. Right?
But i think u could go -1 FKZ, +1 Sadistic? If you keep 2 DR targets then 2 DR is fine to run i think, but if you want to keep your FKZ then i think its necessary to run 3 DR. But then you will have to cut 2 cards from the MD, which seems hard in my eyes.
Also: @Parcher in your list you played at the tournament you changed the manabase a litle, and you got a city in your SB. Please explain this to me, since i dont see anything wrong with 1 U.Paradise, 4 Mines, 3 City's and 3 Coliseums. Anyhow, i like the Sadistic guy after some testing, but im just not sure what to cut from the MD in order to run him.
~Maarten
In order to play the slow-dredging method, you often need about 2 mana on the table, to get it working correctly.
Knowing that I guess Parcher always boarded an additional land when he boarded the tribes.
Why couldn't it be a sb Paradise instead of the sb city then?
I always believed that the rainbow base is built on following order: first come the mines, then the cities and if you really want more land, you put in some copies of paradise/citadel.
Also that the paradise bounces back can lead to the situation that you can just
have 1 land in play on a certain turn, since it takes away a land drop from you.
If that is so relevant I can't tell.
And it could also be possible that he just haven't thought about the paradise and therefore went with the city.
Sadistic Hypnotist isn't good as a 1-off, because you wanna return him as soon as possible. Fkz (and Witness) are mostly played when you will win the same turn, so they may come later. But the Hypnotist must come very soon to let you win. When you play only 1 off it, the oppo has to much time to play his good stuff before it hits the (battle)field.
Another reason for me to stay at Witness + FKZ, Hypnotist has to come early, FKZ doesn't. So a slower hand is weaker if you pick the Hypnotists.
I always played Witness + Fkz with 2 DR, and I really don't want a 3rd, it would be a wasted slot in my opponion. Why do you think with FKZ, a 3rd DR is needed?
But thats just correct for aggro decks.Quote:
But the Hypnotist must come very soon to let you win. When you play only 1 off it, the oppo has to much time to play his good stuff before it hits the (battle)field.
Against aggro-control/ control he has quite the same impact coming after turn3.
And 3 turns is like an eternity for ichorid.
And while I agree on everything else you said, I don't see the bad thing about the SH being just good when coming fast.
Icho is aggro-combo so we have to use the resources to win as fast as possible. Bein able to wreck even combo, bein our worst mu, is another advantage of SH. Problems with aggro shouldn't be that big anyways preboard.
FKZ seems really like a bit overkill.
When you have a horde of token, you should win anyways since you can disrupt the opponent just to well with your therapies.
Maybe it's just a matter of playstyle but I'll stick for now with the hypnotists until Parcher comes up with something new gamebreaking.
Wow. This is actually a useful, intelligent discussion on this thread. Bizarre.
You guys have actually given me a few new things to consider. Though I agree with most of what has been said.
The two points I want to address that I've done some thinking one are:
The change in the manabase was to optimize early use of Coliseum. To have four in case of an early LED basically. But also to use with a second land, especially post-board. While Undiscovered saves on life, and the bounce is occasionally relevant, it doesn't help get two for the Coliseum. Plus, the life is less relevant with the new rules changes, and hard-casting Thug post board is a big bonus.
The other thing is considering one Witness and one Hypnotist. With three Dreads now, it's not all that often that I will hit Witness, and not be able to continue the combo, which will usually give access to Hypnotist. So when I get to DR, either I get Hypno, and Mind Twist them, or more often than not, I get Witness who allows me to keep dredging, get Hypno, and Mind Twist them. Plus I still get the flexibility of having Witness.
Still in testing though so results are not set.
Agreed on almost everything you said. And after some hours of testing on MWS with the following changes in the MD written in the primer:
-1 Firestorm
+1 DR
That was one of the changes i was already considering.
-1 FKZ
+1 Hypno
This seemed a bit weird for me, because i really liked FKZ in some matches, but sometimes i really wanted something else.
Hypno and Witness worked good for me all day. I also thought about taking 1 Unmask out of the MD to throw in the Hypno, so that FKZ would still stay in but i didnt like this to much due to becoming more vuneruble to combo. Since i really want to win G1 i did it as i said above and it worked out nice for me. About the manabase: I understand u wanted to maximize the chances, but i dont feel like playing a 4th Coliseum since i have had days where I had a perfect hand, only 1 coliseum so i couldnt cast my PImp. Im pretty satisfied with my manabase atm.
The only thing that im not sure of is my sideboard.
4 Firestorm, 4 CoV, 1 Ancestor are all slots that are determined to stay IMO. Which leaves 6 slots. I havent seen myself board in Wispmares alot lately so i think they can leave the board, but only if i get a good replacement. Then cutting out our big red guys, i just got settled on em and liked them alot, but your side also makes alot of sense :laugh: So i guess i'll have to do some further testing on the SB, but the MD is feeling good for me atm.
~Maarten
I see FKZ not as overkill, but as winning 1 turn faster. Thats always better.
Why ad a card that's good if you are already fast? Sometimes you don't win in the first 3 turns, and I don't like losing to random topdecked Moats, topdecked Humilitys, topdecked Burn Spells, topdecked EE (with A. Ruins), Survival into answers, Cantrip into answers, Tutor into answers etc.
I can't think of a situation where I could do one of the following actions:
1) Return Fkz (or Witness into Fkz) and win.
2) Return Troll and rip there hand with CTs, wich gives the same effect as SH, but it leaves you with a bigger creature, and them maybe with some unimportant cards in hand that arent worth therapy'ing.
Yesterday, I friend of my, playing EvaGreen, faced ichorid in the final of a tourney. It was the 3rd game, and he had a Tombstalker + Jitte, a Engineered Plague on Horror and one on Illusion. He would win next turn with his Stalker, but with his last dredge, the Ichorid player dredged FKZ, DR'ed it and swung for the win. If he played SH here, he had lost.
1-0 FKZ-SH. Woohoo!:laugh:
No, but serious, in this kind of situation (oppo is going to win with creatures next turn), it's again FKZ > SH.
I really don't see where SH is better than FKZ.
Even an eternity can be reached.
FKZ / Troll + CT did wreck combo as hard as SH does.
Sometimes he is overkill, sometimes he gives you the 1-turn-faster-kill you need, that's just good, not?
Yes, that's just why SH isnt needed. CB can do his work.
You're welcome :cool:
I just played 4 Coliseum, 4 City and 4 Gemstone mine. I never missed DR 3.
(I used to play 3 City and 1 Paradise, because I though I only play the Paradise if I don't have any other land in my hand. But when you have Coliseum + Paradise + PImp (+dredger), the Paradise screws you up.)
12 land is better after Sb'ing so you have to mulligan less because of a-hate-without-land-hand (I keep playing GG I think (need to test the white PImps), and hardcasting Thug/moeba is to good), and now you have less problems with getting black/red/white mana plus you have 4 Coliseum to go off with (i love that card).
But this is just what fits your playstyle I think.
Mind Twist (with SH) < Kill the same turn (FKZ)
Mind Twist (with SH) < Mind Twist (with therapy's)+Big body
Especially if the first option requires 1 more card to be good enough (DR 3).
Why did you want something else? Because he was overkill in some situations? In others he saved your ass, remember (or not, because you could lose to topdecks that you don't see when winning with FKZ)?
Witness + FKZ would have worked either.
I think you also always need to put Unmask 4 in the board. It's to good G3 (or G2 if you lost G1). The other 5 slots should be 4 GG/4 Tribe(need testings, which of them is better. I think less then 4 Tribe (maybe 3 is still good enough) is not enough to fight Crypt/Relic, since you Always wanna see a PImp/Tribe against them. With 6 of them, the change is to low I think. The last slot could be Wispmare, as Leyline answer 5, and against Enchantress/other deck that pack naughy enchantments. Thats how my Sb is. 4 GG, 4 CoV, 4 Firestorm, 1 Wispmare, 1 Unmask, 1 Ancestor.