Yes, good idea. -1 Ichorid. +1 Imp seems reasonable. Ichorid doesnt come into play until turn 2-3 and this version has a lot of stuff to do on turn 1 and 2 where you would rather see an Imp and/or Thug.Originally Posted by myselves
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Putrid Imp
4 Brainstorm
4 Breakthrough
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Deep Analysis
2 Dread Return
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
info.ninja
Thanks, very stupid from me
And cutting 1 Ichorid seemd better then cutting the Dredger, yeah
Mvg
*Team Haste!*
It's not an irrefutable argument, I'm not convinced that Brainstorm is better than Careful Study at all, if Brainstorm bricks than Careful Study would have been superior and multiple Brainstorms are worse than multiple Careful Study. Careful Study also sets up plays that Brainstorm doesn't, like Dredging or activating Ichorid on your second turn, Dredging to reach Threshold for Cephalid Coliseum or Dredging to discard additional Dredgers for Breakthrough. I don't think drawing 3 is that much better than drawing 2 and discarding 2, even with the Narcomoeba trick, because you'd need a Narcomoeba and an outlet to make it relevant in the first place, and you'd need 3 Dredgers to take full advantage of drawing 3.Thanks, very stupid from me
And cutting 1 Ichorid seemd better then cutting the Dredger, yeah
Mvg
Brainstorm mite be better than Careful Study under ideal situations, but the entire point of that slot is to get the deck started and then combo with Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe or LED for speed. Brainstorm is both win more and danger of cool things compared to Careful Study, and it even encourages bad decisions like Brainstorming for an outlet when you should have gone into EOT discard mode.
I suggested removing the Deep Analysis slot for the cantrip slot awhile ago, and I've used it to good effect since then;
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Putrid Imp
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dread Return
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame Kin Zealot
1 Deep Analysis
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
I actually think Careful Study > Breakthrough, not in a power sense, but in a strong yet non committal sense. Careful Study gives the deck both momentum and options, which is vital when facing Tormod's Crypt.
The MD is 61 cards, but you can cut whichever card you feel is the worst 4x, I cut a Gemstone Mine a lot. The SB is in flux, but one of the most powerful cards I've found in the SB is Darkblast. It Dredges, it kills Yixlid Jailor, it kills Goblins and it shuts down Cephalid Breakfast, which is huge.
The deck is consistently faster than the multiple Deep Analysis decks, you may not win on turn one on the draw as often, but you do win on turn 2 on average more often. I don't think winning on turn one on the draw off of LED, Cephalid Coliseum and Deep Analysis is that important, because the opponent either dropped an answer to prevent you from winning on turn one or you Dredge enough to Cabal Therapy his combo/hate piece and establish enough of a board presence to become inevitable. I look at Deep Analysis in the same sense as Cephalid Sage, it's just there to give the deck a random boost while the 1cc cards do all of the work.
I've been trying Undiscovered Paradise instead of City of Brass, to stop some of the bleeding from multiple uses added to Deep Anal...so far it's been fine. Then again, I run Lotus Petal as well. Pointless post, sorry.
I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that 2 Dread Return/1 Sage/1 Flame-Kin Zealot probably isn't correct, though I'm not entirely sure what is. I think if you play Sage you need 3 Dread Returns.
Here's my reasoning as to why.
Very often, when you want to Dread Return Sage, your graveyard has 1-2 Bridges. Meaning that when you Dread Return the Sage, whether by real creatures or by generating a pair of zombies off a Therapy flashback, you're going to pick up a couple more Zombies in the process.
This means that your board, after Dread Return #1's resolution, will probably be Zombie/Zombie/Sage, at worst. At best, it might pick up another Narcomoeba or two or a few additional zombies.
Now, if you run three Returns, you probably win. Sacrifice the Sage to Flash a Therapy (You almost definitely have one in the yard after the Sage), netting more Zombie tokens, allowing you to once again Dread Return the Cephalid Sage.
If you only run two and choose to do this, you forego your Flame-Kin Zealot kill. By running a third Dread Return, assuming you've hit a second one by this point (And you probably have by this time), you get to go ahead and roll the rest of your library before you go for the Flame-Kin, who you might need more ammunition for or who might be lurking in your bottom twenty or thirty cards.
This will likely come close to finishing off your library, letting you then use Dread Return #3 on the Flame-Kin Zealot and win immediately.
On the last two tournaments, I've taken part with Ichorid, I've played 2 Sages and 3 Returns. This allows better actions, and Sage is one of the best cards in the deck, cause it decreases the chance to fizzle. I just play two Sages, cause if you do, you'll always have one in the Graveyard.
But as fast as you can, you don't want to draw cards with anything else than a recurring Sage. In more than 90% of the games, you won't cast more than one Study/Breakthrough/Brainstorm.
And Brainstorm allows cazy actions with LED and Breakthrough, so a Breakthrough+ Brainstorm is much better than two Studies.
There will never be another me
I said that it was stupid from me, because I don't looked 3 posts above ;).
And at the list on top of this page, I want to play that list with 1 Dread Return and 1 Sage more, what are the best cards to cut?
Mvg
*Team Haste!*
Both BW and Taco make good points but in a sense we are taking two different cards and assigning them the same role. Careful Study is more of a set up card and Brainstorm is more of a combo piece so really the issue is whether you want more setup or combo potential.
In initial testing with a split of both I found instances where Careful Study would have been better than Brainstorm and visa versa but one was not better often enough to justify cutting the other completely. In other words I think there might be a place for both cards in the deck.
The card that is the win more IMO is Deep Analysis. DA only comes up if you are already comboing out then dredging 2 more times in that instance probably doesnt offset seeing DA as a brick in your opening grip at other times.
info.ninja
Who cares if Brainstorm + Breakthrough is better than 2 Careful Studies, and it isn't, trust me, if 2 Brainstorms are awful? Brainstorm does not put the deck in a position to Dredge, and that is not acceptable.
@Tacosnape
True, but I look at Cephalid Sage as Dread Return Cephalid Sage, Dredge into the second Dread Return, Dread Return Flame Kin Zealot and end the game or Dredge into the second Dread Return, Mind Twist the opponent's hand and then Dread Return Golgari Grave Troll and just win with a handful of tokens, an X/X and Ichorids in short order.
I'm not from the "combo out" school of Ichorid, what a lot of people fail to understand is that once Ichorid is in a position to win, it wins, and when it wins is often irrelevant. As long as Cabal Therapy keeps the opponent off of his combo pieces, and as long as you continue to Dredge Cabal Therapy, you're inevitable. A lot of the time I want to cut Cephalid Sage and Flame Kin Zealot altogether and max Dread Return, because after the first Dread Return it's all down hill from there.
If you honestly ask yourself what do you need the combo kill against, ironically your answer is Goblins, where Bridge from Below is at its worst. Unless you're running head to head vs Storm Combo, a match up where either your SB shines or your opponent SBs Leyline of the Void and you scoop, you don't have a reason to include dead cards for "win now" as opposed to cards that put you in a position to win.
The deck drives itself, you just have turn on the ignition.
@DlevsApiJ
The cards I'd cut are, Golgari Thug, Putrid Imp and Gemstone Mine for 60 cards and a 3 Dread Return, 2 Cephalid Sage and 1 Flame Kin Zealot package, altho' I don't see the need for a second Cephalid Sage.
@XsockmonkeyX
The amusing thing is that Careful Study and Brainstorm are good together, but with out Lion's Eye Diamond and Breakthrough. Brainstorm's best application is as a strategic weapon against Tormod's Crypt, where the deck is holding back threats with Putrid Imp, Tireless Tribe, Careful Study and Brainstorm instead of committing its entire hand with Lion's Eye Diamond and Breakthrough.
When any deck is in position to win, it wins, to be fair. Personally, I've been testing a ton against Thresh and Landstill, which are in my opinion the two worst matchups, due to them being able to play the long game with little to no investment so much better, and Cabal Therapy is often irrelevant (Landstill just Brainstorms back it's Deed/EE, counters your Therapy, or Facts into new answers, Thresh Counterbalances/hard counters the Therapy). Both decks pack answers to you when you give more time.
In my testing, I've almost always been forced to go for the throat via Flame Kin, just because they can randomly topdeck (or not so randomly) into EE or Deed, of which this deck has no answers. Giving your opponent an extra turn when you can just win then and there seems to be rather terrible against most of the metagame at the moment, in my opinion. Ichorid is supposed to be explosive and win the turn it combos off, because of it's total lack of a backup plan if it's disrupted.
Are you serious?
***** is the best MU, you have enough cards out of the CB reach, and he can't handle Bridge from Below pre or postboard.
4c Landstill is not as good as *****, but ~60% for you, the clock of Landstill is to slow and gives you enough time, to try again if Deed/EE kills you token.
@BreathWeapon: you run Careful Study, but only one DA, DA is much better than Study, cause you have LED, and as fast as you can, you don't want to draw cards, the only exceptions are cards you can flashback, like DA.
There will never be another me
I'm really curious what lists you've been testing against. Here's a bit of what I've had to test against:
-Red splash Thresh gets EE and Pyroclasm, both of which wipe non-hasty Zombies.
-UG gets Wasteland vs your entire land base, Stifle maindecked against your Bridges, and EE that they can use @ 0 vs zombies or 1 to blow up Imp and their own Mongeese, in order to take down Bridges mid-combo.
-White splash in my area still packs Mage, which you have no answer to when he drops early, making you rushed on getting a Therapy opening hand, because if they hit DR, Ichorids tend to be pretty terrible vs 6/7 Goyfs thanks to your graveyard's Enchantments, Lands, Creatures, Sorceries, and Artifacts, along with their Instants.
4c Landstill turned into a slaughterhouse post board. They have maindeck Deed, EE, inevitability past turn 4-5, and then have access to siding in Leyline of the Void and Crypt in addition. I literally won 1 game in 20, because my opponent would either see Leyline in opening hand, or have a Crypt out and enough counters or gas to get to turn 4 to dropping Leyline. First turn Leyline kept me from every win condition short of hard casting Narcomoeba and Imps, which is hardly relevant vs a 4/4 first striker that's online as soon as turn 4.
I'm not sure if your seeing the same types of hate as I am, but it's really starting to shake my foundation in this deck's ability to cope, which I always thought was pretty strong until this last week.
vs. normal Grow or Landstill builds.
And yes, you're right, they have the hate, but often it is to slow to stop your combo, and if it works, both decks are to slow, if they start with MM stoping return, you dig out Ichorids and the Token, if they kill your Token, your next turn Ichorid comes back, takes a few of their LP and gives you new token.
Grow doesn't play Wasteland, cause they have CB+Cantrips, often they don't even play Stifle.
If they board LotV, the MU isn't so good, you just can try to bounce them.
But I've never seen a Landstill or Grow(without B-splash) boarding LotV, and Crypt is not a big problem as you think.
There will never be another me
@Deathwing: You're out of your mind. Threshold is a cakewalk. Threshold is the reason you play this deck.
You don't need a manabase to beat U/G Threshold, and they can't Stifle your manabase unless you're running Fetchlands for some reason, which you shouldn't be. All you need to beat UG Threshold is to get a Troll/Imp in your yard. Then you dredge big guys, play Ichorids and Narcomoebas, and win.
UGR Thresh isn't really much harder. EE and Pyroclasm might sweep your zombies, but you can make more pretty easily. They can sometimes win on back to back to back to back sweeps/crypts with Goyfs backing it up, but this doesn't happen more than about half the time in my experience, and you're still going to take game one about 90% of the time.
To me I feel that 58 cards of the MD are set in stone, and for the last 2 I'm debating between Dread Return 3 and Sage 2, or 2 Careful Study. I actually agree with BW about Careful study being better than Brainstorm here...but i dont know why anyone would want to cut DA, LED doesnt seem to have much point without it.
In my opinion the three returns are shall be played, I personal would always run two Sages, to be sure that you'll always have one in your yard.
The Studies aren't needed I still think, they're just inferior Breakthroughs, not more.
There will never be another me
Game one is never really a problem, unless they draw well. But game two gets them more EE, and more sorcery-speed answers in general. This is the main reason I continue to pack at least 3 DR, because I WANT to get that Flame Kin in play ASAP. Relying on Ichorid beats against Thresh is basically a losing battle. They can trade Mongoose against your Ichorids, killing off your Bridges and keeping their Goyf's in the meantime, and that's not even counting if they have white for StP or red for Bolt and Fire/Ice. The white splash is even more painful, because they only need the StP against your Ichorids, killing off what little chance the deck has at getting more zombies out over time.
From the sound of it, your games aren't going through any type of hate at all, let alone a clock. When I see Thresh killing Ichorid as soon as turn 4, that makes me wonder what's going wrong with the versions I see compared to other people.
And for the record, I'd say I'm seeing about a 70% favor for UGw Thresh I play against post-board, which is very closely based on the list Bardo threw out for our last Batcave tournament. Mage, StP, EE, Stifle and a clock are just bad for this deck's game plan. I'll continue with testing it and see if I can evolve a different strategy, but I'm still under the impression if Thresh was such a good matchup, this deck should be seeing WAY more showings, as the rest of the format short of TES or Breakfast is almost always too slow for this.
Was that post a joke? Thresh is pretty much a byw for Ichorid, and the reason it doesnt post more showings is because few play the deck because of incorrect notions about it scooping to single cards, and people who play it often play it badly, such as whoever you are citing that loses to Thresh 70% of the time...
I'm just back from GP: Stuttgart where I played this deck at the legacy sideevent. I finished 7/1/0 taking 2nd place as the only person with 21 points. I played Taco's Brainstorm-tech (cuttet 3 Gambles for it) and was very pleased with it. I don't know if I like it better than Gamble in this slot, but it definatly is a very good card!
I will write a more detailed report tomorrow.
P.S.: For the love of god, put this deck back in the DTB forum! It really is THAT good.
LED is a huge, huge, huge card even with out DA, LED combos with Breakthrough, LED combos with Careful Study, LED combos with Cephalid Coliseum and LED even discards your entire hand by itself for 0 mana.
After using LED in Vintage Ichorid, what I noticed was the best hand that deck draws is Bazaar of Baghdad, Dredgers and LED. The LED puts the Dredgers in position to be Dredged on the first turn, which leads to either a turn one or turn two win 99% of the time.
DA is, in essence, a bad Careful Study on the play. You're best play is to cast either one of them before or after LED, but DA is useless with out LED where Careful Study is effective. What you want is to maximize your Breakthrough + LED, Careful Study + LED or Cephalid Coliseum + LED plays and then run just enough DA in order to spend the remaining UU and Dredge a second time.
What I found was that Dredge was built on a bad premise, we took Manaless Ichorid and kept the original engine with out questioning whether or not the original engine was superior to draw spell + LED, and it turns out that it isn't, because people aren't drawing after the coin flip, and relying on being on the draw to maximize your speed is dubious for a number of very obvious reasons.
I have to admit tho', I have been looking at 4 Breakthrough, 4 Careful Study and 4 Deep Analysis, removing Putrid Imp for Nether Shadow and removing Gemstone Mine for Deep Analysis. The idea is that adding Careful Study A) increases/maintains outlets B) consolidates mana costs into U C) reduces the need for lands D) supports Force of Will in the SB and Putrid Imps function is replaced by EOT discard/dredge and increased threat density from Nether Shadow when it matters the most, game 2 on the draw where the opponent elects to go first in order to drop Tormod's Crypt.
It's 100% experimental, but I think it goes to show you that there are a lot of things we've taken for granted, and Dredge is not set in stone.
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dread Return
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame Kin Zealot
Note: It's often 4 Dread Return because I hate Cephalid Sage and Flame Kin Zealot and Dread Return is superior in draw, discard, dredge mode.
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Deep Analysis
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
It operates under the assumption that Putrid Imp is both A) too slow and B) worthless in the discard pile compared to Nether Shadow, which feeds Ichorid, recurs itself and is a permanent threat. It focuses on the fundamentals, the LED, Cephalid Coliseum and DA engine on the draw, the LED, Breakthrough or Careful Study and DA engine on the play and is superior in draw, discard and dredge mode thanks to Nether Shadow. You lose some consistency, like 2 lands for Cephalid Coliseum, one land for Breakthrough or Careful Study and one land for Cabal Therapy, but you also gain consistency in Careful Study, LED + DA at 4x and Nether Shadow.
I don't have enough practice with that list, but in theory, it's the farthest you can push the deck in terms of speed and the strongest you can make the deck in terms of draw, discard, dredge (sans Street Wraith).
Edit: I've also tried replacing City of Brass with Lotus Petal for hands of Cephalid Coliseum, Breakthrough and land, where I could Breakthrough on the first turn and then activate Cephalid Coliseum on the second turn with Lotus Petal or draw, discard, drege and then activate Cephalid Coliseum with Lotus Petal once Dredgers were in position, but you lose a lot of other plays as well, Careful Study and Breakthrough, 2xCareful Study, Cabal Therapy protection etc.
Don't get me wrong, I like Putrid Imp, and I love turn one Land, Putrid Imp pass. Dredge and then either Breakthrough, Careful Study or Cephalid Coliseum, but you have to run 12 lands just for Putrid Imp, albeit those 12 lands also support Breakthrough, Careful Study, Cephalid Coliseum, Deep Analysis, Cabal Therapy and the SB to an extent, but any cards that forces you to run lands in Dredge is bad.
I'm sure there is a medium for all of these concepts, but at the moment I don't have the time to come to a conclusion, and other people's opinions may differ on said conclusion. All I know for certain is that 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Cephalid Coliseum, 4 Breakthrough, 4 Careful Study and 1 DA is the starting point for the best possible Dredge deck, the rest is in 1+ DA, the land ratio and whether or not Putrid Imp and additional lands is worth 4- DA and Nether Shadow.
@DeathWingZero
That's not true, just because a deck is in a position to win doesn't mean it will win, Goblins is in a position to win when it has a board full of Goblins, but one Pernicious Deed eliminates its position. Dredge is a deck that doesn't have an answer, at least game 1, so once its in a position to win, there's nothing the opponent can do about it. With draw, discard, dredge, there isn't even much an opponent can do to prevent you from establishing a position to win, provided your clock is fast enough.
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