[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

[jin]

I think you're rambling a bit here. The deck's primary objective is to attack first and ask questions later. You aren't banking your entire game-plan on four discard spells before the third turn - you're looking to race their life total with attackers so you can neuter Ad Nauseam in the process.

Yeah, it felt like rambling. I was quite sleepy. Sorry about that.

Yes, I realize it must attack first, but unless you can take out 15 life in one hit, chances are you will die to Ad Nauseam regardless, so Cabal Therapy is a stronger plan. Racing will give you another option, but I'm saying it really shouldn't be your main plan.

I spent most of the better half of the last ten years playing against Bryant Cook in Syracuse on a weekly basis. Rest assured, the race isn't that far out of your favor as you'd think. T.E.S. has a much more fragile outlet of winning games in comparison to the general simplicity of ANT, and you can actually race Empty the Warrens as your creatures gain haste and ability to attack first - inherently forcing your opponent to block. The flip-side of this is dealing directly with Ad Nauseam, which I've already covered. T.E.S. also mulligans more aggressively than traditional ANT, and does not run Leyline of the Void (I'm not insinuating all ANT builds do, but there are some that opt to run graveyard hate).

Maybe I don't play like Bryant Cook, but from my experience as a TES player, ETW gets sided out in this match up, so I'm not sure what's going on here. I'm sure most TES players know that ETW is bad here. I'm sure most would go for Ad Nauseam or Ill-gotten gains which just wins it out right, probably Past in Flames now, more than IGG. I think I'm rambling again. The point is TES players deal with Ichorid like they do with Zoo. To TES players, you are pretty much a fast aggro deck. Your only real advantage is Cabal Therapy which is probably the most scariest card to see you dredge.

Post-board Chancellor of the Annex will help here.

A "grind out" is rather vague. If you're implying an attack or two with an Ichorid and Nether Shadow, that still doesn't win you the game. No one should have to go into detail explaining what a 'combo' is here, so we can safely say that no matter what time you opt to play Dread Return, it still should ice the game and either win the game outright, or effectively end the game for all intents and purposes.

It is, but that is exactly what I'm implying. Sure, it doesn't win you the game, but it gets you close enough to kill them with a small FKZ. Yes I agree Dread Return does 'ice the game' but I really don't think it is the be-all-that-ends-all. A fat troll, flaming zombies, or giant angels don't really finish the game immediately in the power level of today's Legacy. I hardly feel safe Dread Returning while my opponent is at 20 life.

Beating them down a little always makes it much easier.

I'm a little confused here; in what way does a Nether Shadow make more Zombies than a Narcomoeba? Both do not leave play at the end of turn and both make tokens when they die. Nether Shadow's recursion factor is rather moot; by the time you're able to re-re-recur Nether Shadow, the game should be on ice. Nether Shadow is also more conditional than Narcomoeba - more often than not.

Nether Shadow can die multiple times. Narcomaeba can only die once. Nether Shadow is more conditional, but with Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith, it's hardly a challenge to bring him back.

With 4 Narcomoebas, you have a much higher chance of opening one in your hand than with 3 Narcomoebas making the 4th quite unnecessary and redundant.

Vial Goblins and Dredge are two completely different archetypes with two completely varying strategies regarding phase structure and the Attack Step - so we can pretty much describe this as a moot point. The similarities in which you're trying to parallel only derive from the strategic inference of attacking or not attacking with Ichorid. You obviously weigh your options at this point, but you're completely forgoing in your response that Manaless Dredge is non-interactive and that Goblins is. That completely changes the perplexity of these two archetypes in contrast.

I'm only really comparing them on a very basic level. The point is, both decks want to do the same thing. They both want to litter the board with their tribe and swing in for a massive hit. The comparison here is really that and not moot at all. I'm drawing a similarity here and it is the similarity in positioning the board.

You're talking to someone who has won sets of Blue Dual Lands with Polar Kraken, so maybe it's just me but it's not about how you race it but how you play it.

I'm really not interested in going into what famous person I'm talking to. I'm just here to discuss the implications of not running a full set of Narcomoebas which I have always felt like a nuisance.

If it has worked for you in the past, that's fine. And I take it that this comment reflects how much experience you have, but I'm just curious how someone with some much experience can so easily deny the possibility of a flex slot in, for lack of better words, 'core part' of the deck.

In my experience with building decks, there is never anything that is a must and almost every card can be shifted. The stubbornness in accepting change is just puzzling.

Strictly speaking regarding this topic though, I find that the only real arguments here are Narcomoeba provides the necessary speed this deck needs to win a turn faster, but does 1x Narcomoeba really affect this speed? I'm not so sure...

I never disagreed with you on this point. However, if you think that basing your entire strategy around simply "grinding out" wins through the Attack Step is optimal when you have fourteen to eighteen cards dedicated to another potent strategy (the Dread Return plan), then you are wrong.

That's not my only strategy, but it is the main one. I feel that Dread Return seals the deal, but it's not the strategy I b-line for. Simply put, the aggro plan is much more effective in that it is much harder to play against.

Throwing your whole hand out for a single Dread Return can be very dangerous. I prefer to have the field littered with zombies. Maybe this is my Goblin background speaking, I'm not too sure..

Immediacy, what you are not understanding, is what makes winning *now* more consistent and prevalent to this whole discussion. Nether Shadow does not come into play once it hits the graveyard, which is actually very relevant against Storm. It's completely foolish to think otherwise. Have you not even looked at my sideboard - or the sideboard of the deck that went undefeated at the Grand Prix on Day One?

Yes, again, I don't deny that Narcomoeba is faster on the combo turn. I have looked at it. He plays Chancellors to slow down the storm combo player. Sorry I haven't seen your list.

Chancellor of the Annex backed by a solid beat-down plan - with supplemental discard - is just a thrashing to Storm. And try and tell me that Dread Returning a Chancellor is bad against Storm, which is by far not out of the question. It's still a bad match-up, but you are completely off-base in your assumption you can't race them - especially when factoring in things like mulligans and poor draws.

I don't understand your fury here. I agree that "beat-down plan - with supplemental discard - is a [...] thrashing for storm."

In fact, that's the only plan I see Ichorid players doing in order to beat TES. Like I said before, you have to rely on Cabal Therapy. Chancellor really helps here I think, but by slowing them down, it really gives you another turn to get Nether Shadow and Ichorid into play. That way, you can easily Dread Return the Chancellor by that time.

I don't know, that just sounds like you hope they keep a crap hand while you dredge into all of your business. That's too optimistic for me.

I've raced - and beaten - Storm with Manaless Dredge. You have a lot more outs and lines of play than you think you do, as I think you're not paying a little closer attention to the intricacies of the deck strategically. Trying to 'pawn off' my analysis to a mana-based Dredge build or hybrid list is just moot - the discussion here is about Manaless Dredge and the fact that it can race Storm using a critical set of Narcomoebas.

Yeah, with the list 8 cantrip list, it seems to be pretty capable of winning turn 3 on the draw. The suggestion is merely a metaphor - mana/hybrid dredge after all is more combo oriented.

I think you are starting to take this a little personally. This really isn't a storm vs Ichorid discussion. I'm not saying that Ichorid is incapable of comboing off. All I'm saying is it is a known fact that Ichorid is generally slower than storm combo and that the focus here shouldn't be to combo out, but to disrupt. Given that your opponent has a crap hand, you can easily just go and kill them.

I can tell you're arguing from conjecture rather than experience, which is making this all the more infuriating for me.

It has been unpleasant talking to you too. Thanks.

Narcomoeba's immediacy is NOT unnecessary. You will have a much harder time defeating faster decks without running all four. It's that simple.

This deck is faster on average than traditional Breakthrough Dredge.

I'll make a more fleshed-out response tonight when I have time.

Thanks. I recognize that Narcomoebas has been a staple in Ichorid for many years, but the 4th really does seem redundant to me. Instead of dredging them in multiples, chances are you can easily open with 1 or 2 in your hand. Nether Shadows in your hand hurt much less than Narcomoebas as Nether Shadows in your hand can be pitched and generate tokens later while Narcomoebas cannot.

Nether Shadow comes back constantly.

Narcomoeba is faster, but keep in mind that I'm not cutting Narcomoeba from the deck, I'm still running 3 of them.

By the time you can actually kill with Dread Return (let's say you have a broken dredge and you are going to kill turn 3 on the draw), that already gives you sufficient amount of time to have 1-2 other zombies (Ichorid, Nether Shadow) on the board that you don't need to rely heavily on dredging 3 Narcomoebas.