[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Good lord.

Shoal seems to have intrinsic value over Foil out of the board. DS is perfectly viable with eight 2 CMC blue cards and Force of Will capacity - by pitching Force to counter Force.

I've had great luck with Shoal so far; the card's been amazing. The irony of utilizing the most dead of draws in Narcomoeba as being part of the protective equation is actually hilarious.

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I was only joking about Foil.

I haven't had the same luck with Disrupting Shoal, Force of Will has been doing most of the countering so I really debate whether or not the added % vs ~2 Rest in Peace is worth 3 Surgical Extraction vs Reanimator etc. if they don't draw hate then I think we win anyway so the instrinsic value may not be significantly better than an otherwise dead card vs aggro-control compared to a clutch card vs Reanimator.

So in short does anyone think Disrupting Shoal is over SBing?

Joke or not, i really have to troll someone using Land Grant into Tropical Island for Foil!

@Final Fortune: It depends on what you want your sideboard to do: if you want to answer hate with consistency i think you have to play shoal, if you want to address more slots for the other combo matchups, then you can cut the shoals. You won't be able to fight through hate as well as with the 8-counters package,though.

Disrupting Shoal, in the match-ups you'd bring it in, is effectively the next best thing to Force of Will. Rest in Peace is seeing a fair amount of play, and considering it's really the only card we care about stopping bringing in a set to compliment the Forces seems right. We can't mulligan and we need at least two blue cards in our opening hand, so we want to ensure that this happens.

Like Force of Will, the card is a blowout when it connects. It appears to be (preliminarily, at least) better in just about every circumstance than any sort of anti-hate out of the board. It stops hard-cast Oozes, Zenith on one for Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, tutors in Enchantress, tutors in Storm, Stoneforge Mystic, etc.

I think the tag team of Force and Disrupting Shoal is excellent. Force alone is not enough, although with four Force, four Shoal and four Chancellor of the Annex, we should be fine.

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Originally Posted by Thrasher

Joke or not, i really have to troll someone using Land Grant into Tropical Island for Foil!

@Final Fortune: It depends on what you want your sideboard to do: if you want to answer hate with consistency i think you have to play shoal, if you want to address more slots for the other combo matchups, then you can cut the shoals. You won't be able to fight through hate as well as with the 8-counters package,though.

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Oh man that's even more hilarious, I hadn't even thought of using Land Grant -> Tropical Island, that'd let us use Dryad Arbor and functionally have more business when playing Foil and we even get to Reverent Silence. The ultra combo just keeps getting better and better, they are never going to see this shit comming.

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Disrupting Shoal, in the match-ups you'd bring it in, is effectively the next best thing to Force of Will.
....
I think the tag team of Force and Disrupting Shoal is excellent. Force alone is not enough, although with four Force, four Shoal and four Chancellor of the Annex, we should be fine.

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That's a lot of space to commit to counter!

With a typical list of Nether Shadow, Golgari Thug & Narcomoeba, we have a possible 12 cards to pitch to Shoal, for RiP.
I think that's a VERY good number, considering the huge number of powerful 2-drops out there, especially in control matchups.
Are you guys trying out Shoal, still running the full 12 of these cards above?

My only concern here though, is that Grafdiggers Cage, Relic of Progenitus & Surgical Extraction is at 1cmc > we have very few cards we can pitch with Shoal.
From this alone, Shoal has me wondering how many matchups I'd actually be bringing it in for.
Given that Storm (and most combo) has a high density of one-drops, have you guys found Shoal to be useful against Combo?

Shoal needs a blue pitch. You have 7 cc2 pitches, 4 cc1 pitches, 4 cc4 pitches (for Balustrade spy).
Versus storm i bring in just Forces and Mindbreak traps, i don't suggest to furtherly dilute the deck, since you need Cabal Therapy active as soon as possible.

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Originally Posted by Thrasher

Shoal needs a blue pitch. You have 7 cc2 pitches, 4 cc1 pitches, 4 cc4 pitches (for Balustrade spy).
Versus storm i bring in just Forces and Mindbreak traps, i don't suggest to furtherly dilute the deck, since you need Cabal Therapy active as soon as possible.

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Ugh... RTFC.
Sorry peeps.

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Originally Posted by slave

That's a lot of space to commit to counter!

With a typical list of Nether Shadow, Golgari Thug & Narcomoeba, we have a possible 12 cards to pitch to Shoal, for RiP.
I think that's a VERY good number, considering the huge number of powerful 2-drops out there, especially in control matchups.
Are you guys trying out Shoal, still running the full 12 of these cards above?

My only concern here though, is that Grafdiggers Cage, Relic of Progenitus & Surgical Extraction is at 1cmc > we have very few cards we can pitch with Shoal.
From this alone, Shoal has me wondering how many matchups I'd actually be bringing it in for.
Given that Storm (and most combo) has a high density of one-drops, have you guys found Shoal to be useful against Combo?

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Surgical Extraction is really the least of this deck's worries. I've committed to running Leyline of Sanctity out of my board, which also helps to stop Crypt, Bojuka Bog and Relic's lock ability. It also gives the deck game against Storm-based combo and Burn.

Mindbreak Trap is turning out to be less and less spectacular against competent Storm pilots. Cards like Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Duress and Silence just shut us down - effectively nullifying the card's capacity to function. Sure, these decks can go the route of Empty the Warrens, but that's far less likely to happen than a straight-up Tendrils kill - especially in ANT. Leyline not only shuts down their discard, it also shuts down their ability to target you with Tendrils. I think something like that with Force, Chancellor and Shoal keeps me in good shape.

As far as Grafdigger's Cage goes, the deck has Force of Will with any blue card and Shoal with Probe. Chancellor also plays a key role here as pushing off that turn-one Cage on their side allows you a turn to draw into counter-magic in order to fight it.

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Leyline not only shuts down their discard, it also shuts down their ability to target you with Tendrils. I think something like that with Force, Chancellor and Shoal keeps me in good shape.

As far as Grafdigger's Cage goes, the deck has Force of Will with any blue card and Shoal with Probe. Chancellor also plays a key role here as pushing off that turn-one Cage on their side allows you a turn to draw into counter-magic in order to fight it.

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So that is a hefty full 15 to board in against storm. What do you take out in that case? I guess you could run Chancellor MD, but that still means that you need to cut 11 or 12 cards.
Do you mind sharing your Sb Hollywood? I guess it will be something like:
4 LoS
4 FoW
4 Shoal
3 Faerie Macabre
Am I correct?

Wow. A while ago everybody was laughing when Hollywood sacrificed half of his sb to run green antihate package and now all of the sudden blue packet got so much love.

Seriously Shoal? A card not only requiring a blue card to cast it, it requires a blue card with a RELEVANT CMC to even start working???! And to fight afterboard hate you need to have it on your first hand. How often will you get to have a Shoal with a specific blue card once you dropped Serum Powder? Sorry I don't buy all that "but it can counter this and this and this". We agreed we want to deal with RiP and Cage (I will not even mention 0 turn Leyline because blue packet users seem to ignore existence of this card) but now we are sidinig it a card which will counter "tutors for shaman or stoneforge mystic"?

Regarding Storm, I agree on Mindbreak Trap and Unmask are dissapointing, one of the reasons I replaced Unmask with Dryad Arbor was Storm opponent's knew what to name with Cabal Therapy. A card like Leyline of the Void or Dryad Arbor can't be discarded, so we can either play free, counter proof, permanent hate or we can sacrifice Dryar Arbor consistently. Mindbreakd Trap and Unmask are better when they're paired because the opponent only has a 50/50 chance of guessing what to name, so therefore I think you can't play Mindbreak Trap in the SB without playing Unmask in the MD.

I agree on Disrupting Shoal being a "meh" SB card, opponent's have as little as 2 Rest in Peace sometimes.

I don't like Leyline of Sanctity versus storm, even if it has its merits versus some builds. I tested a lot the storm matchup, and leyline just didn't work for me. I'll try to explain.

1) Time walking:

Opening with Leyline immediately drops you down to six cards, effectively giving the opponent three free turns to go off, not something i'd like to do. In 3 turns storm is more than capable of storming with Empty the warrens (gg against an empty board), or using ad nauseam to look for Chain of Vapor. I think Leyline is significantly stronger against Ant without wish. It can actually steal some g2's, if the opponent doesn't board chain of vapor in. I'd be more willing to play Leyline if i had Unmask, unmasking ourselves negates the tempo loss.

Mindbreak trap, on the other hand, lets you have 7 card at the beginning of the game. True, it can be discarded, but the opponent won't always have a discard spell, and, if he has, he has to use mana to cast it. Wasting his mana in his first turn is very valuable.

2) Interaction with Chancellor of the Annex.

In my opinion Leyline interacts poorly with Chancellor of the Annex. Chancellor's huge usefulness is "stealing" the opponent's first turn to avoid discard and discard-dredge immediately. Leyline doesn't allow this. Having Chancellor + Mindbreak trap is actually quite good, in the storm matchup, they can't go off before hitting mindbreak with discard, and discard can't come before their second turn.



@AmokPL: The blue sideboard has been supported by tests, maths and results. The green sideboards had max 7 green sources. How many pitches for rip does the oh-so-shitty Shoal have? 7. What about Force of will? 15. The build has been tuned to support it. The old post i'm quoting sums up some of the reason to play the blue sideboard.

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Let's say you are facing a rip, and you cast a silence after drawing for 2 turns. The most common decks playing Rip are UWR delver,Stoneblade and Death&Taxes.Uwr/stoneblade should have found a counter by then. If he hasn't you'll end up with 6-7 cards in hand and an empty grave. That's 1-2 more timewalks. Now, 3/4 turns are more than enough to establish a good board position, even against us. Stoneforge for Jitte is hard to beat when your first dredge happens with jitte already equipped and charged. Death and Taxes can't counter, but it has Thalia, which makes you need forest to hardcast the answer to rip. Dryad arbor is also pretty bad at casting hate, in these matchups, they have Wasteland and Swords to Plowshares to remove it before it can tap for mana. Uwr has bolt, too.

Now, about cage: i mostly see it in Show and Tell based decks, jund and team america. Time walking show and tell leads to 15/15s knocking at your door, team america will just draw into counters and try to resolve double deathrite shaman or apply some pressure with delver + goyfs. Jund has just burn for Dryad Arbors and discard to try to furtherly timewalk themselves. It shouldn't be hard anyway vs jund, though, unless they do something stupid like Cage+Ooze.

Another thing i don't like about the green sideboard is the amount of slots it takes. Using force + shoal you basically have 4 cards that are dead versus everything but hate (shoals), for claim to work you need to run forests + fetches in the sideboard, and Silence can't touch cage. Sideboarding without diluting the deck too much becomes quite hard,too, unless you're playing fetches in the maindeck, which is something i'd do only in a bloodghast list.

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"We agreed we want to deal with RiP and Cage (I will not even mention 0 turn Leyline because blue packet users seem to ignore existence of this card"
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on Leyline
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on Rip
http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on Cage
9 decks playing Leyline in December, 5 in January. Playing antihate to fight leyline instead of Rip/Cage seems like playing Firemane Angel because of the burn matchup.

A smart Storm player isn't going to walk into Mindbreak Trap cold. Force and Shoal are nice bonuses to have against Storm, but they aren't the sole reason they're in there. Storm players have enough wit to fire out at least a single discard spell or Silence before going off, and I've repeatedly found myself saying, "Fuck, if only I could hold this guy off with a Leyline for a turn or two, I'd be set."

As far as Time Walking goes, it doesn't matter. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care about forfeiting a turn to protect myself from losing.

The card is a beast. And no one is boarding in Chain of Vapor against Manaless Dredge. Why would they? It doesn't do anything outright and I just feel as though the merits of Leyline outweigh the risks.

Also, in what parallel universe is Leyline bad with Chancellor? You're not only hosing their primary win condition and discard and Probes for info outright, you're still setting them back a turn. If anything, the synergy is omnipresent and works better when an opponent pays two life for a Probe, lets it get countered and fires off a Duress.

You're saying you lose a turn with Leyline. I'm saying I gain a turn by shutting a majority of their cards down and stopping their turn one to dig out of it. Seems really good.

And even if Shoal is there to stop two to three RiPs total, it still counters other spells in the event your opponent doesn't see it. Shoal and Force work well together and should be plenty to help you succeed.

Just the thought of kicking an EOT Crop Rotation in the junk makes me smile. I fucking hate that card, and I'm not losing to it ever again. Leyline works against an asston of decks, fellas; it's worth testing.

Also, Force of Will has more weight in more match ups than Trap outright, which is why I removed it, albeit temporarily, from my board.

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Originally Posted by Hollywood

Just the thought of kicking an EOT Crop Rotation in the junk makes me smile. I fucking hate that card, and I'm not losing to it ever again. Leyline works against an asston of decks, fellas; it's worth testing.

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Losing to Jeremiah's deck pushes the rigors of my testing far beyond losing to any other deck. And he's a good friend of mine!

I agree, a good storm player will never walk into Mindbreak Trap without protection, but this means that he'll have to wait to assemble a protected combo. The time it'll take to do that should be enough to start our engine and fire off a therapy.

The turn you lose can be crucial, depending on the deck you're facing. I've done most of my testing versus TES and Ant with Burning Wish, losing a turn led to hard times facing goblins. The times when i had leyline + counter backup were great indeed, but i felt i couldn't do that often enough.

Chancellor in the opening without leyline means that you'll be dredging on turn 2. Chancellor with leyline means giving the opponent two turns to setup an etw combo against an empty board. By the way, i'd expect the ant player to board in chain of vapor, if they lose g2 to it.

Anyway, i'll test it again, using a wishless ant build, too. Honestly i'm not a huge fan of trap, too, but it has worked so far. Being able to "counter" Crop rotation for bojuka is a nice thing in favour of leyline, though.

You can counter Crop Rotation with Force of Will / Disrupting Shoal + Gitaxian Probe too, and the % combined should be better than the 40% of Leyline.

Honestly, i wouldn't side in the counter package versus something like jund depths. Leyline would be far more valuable. 4 slots compared to 8, plus it negates the opponent's discard spells. The timewalk should never be relevant in this matchup.

Well, Lands/Jund Depths can win on turn 4, the lists with Exploration can win on turn 2/3; this can be relevant i think.

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Originally Posted by Shawon

Losing to Jeremiah's deck pushes the rigors of my testing far beyond losing to any other deck. And he's a good friend of mine!

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It's not just that deck; Crop Rotation is seeing play in several decks now: Elves, Dark Depths and 12Post. It's annoying and quite frankly, Bog is seeing play. Leyline is just a nice bonus that shuts that strategy down. Since I've swapped to that strategy, I haven't dropped a game to 12Post in four straight matches. They're too slow and rely too heavily on disrupting you with repeated Bog attempts. Show and Tell is not as good against us as it would be against other strategies, which is fine by me. I also run Ashen Rider in my build to deal with game-swinging cards like Omniscience and Glacial Chasm.

Lands is also an incredibly easy match-up. They're a slow, controlling deck that relies on tapping lands down and shutting opponents out of the game with Ports and such. We don't care about any of that. Blocking a 20/20 flying creature with a Narcomoeba is a rather nice bonus, and with the sideboard strategy of Faerie Macabre blowing out Life from the Loam can be key. The crackback can be just huge and enough to kill an opponent who can't keep up with it.

You could even Dread Return a Narcomoeba, make tokens and setup a blocker in a pinch against that deck; it's rather simple. In fact, I'd go so far as saying that a competent, strong Manaless pilot could blow it out rather easily.