[Deck] Ichorid

[Wereodile]

I see quite a few lists running Underground Sea's which is great and all but I do not have any.
What dual would you suggest in it's place, I'm not sure if the pain lands are better in this situation as opposed to the Ravnica shock lands. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Zach Tartell]

I see quite a few lists running Underground Sea's which is great and all but I do not have any.
What dual would you suggest in it's place, I'm not sure if the pain lands are better in this situation as opposed to the Ravnica shock lands. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Running rainbow lands (City of Brass, Gemstone Mine) really helps your sideboard options, and are about $100 cheaper.

[Wereodile]

City of Brass (Duh!) good call thank you.

[Pulp_Fiction]

BreathWeapon mentioned Tireless Tribe and for some reason I just wanted to post my Dredge list on the Source and see if anyone plays a particular build. I basically run extended Dredge because I greatly dislike the inconsistencies of typical 12x land or less Dredge. I don't play this deck very much but I have taken this exact list to my local tournament twice and both times out of more than 20 people it has made it to a top 4 split. Here is Extended Dredge with 1x Legacy card:

1x Flame-Kin Zealot
2x Darkblast
2x Cephalid Sage
3x Dread Return
3x Ichorid
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Tireless Tribe
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Putrid Imp
4x Bridge from Below
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
4x Narcomoeba
1x Undiscovered Paradise
2x Tarnished Citadel
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass

SB
1x Ray of Revalation
2x Ancient Grudge
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Pithing Needle
4x Chain of Vapor

I have found this list to be incredibly consistent ... well .... as much as a Dredge list can be I suppose. I have played typical Dredge before and my least favorite cards in the deck were LED and Deep Analysis. I always felt the deck sacrificed consistency for speed. This deck is very strong against hate and almost as fast. I have won numerous games after being Extirpated 2+ times just because I was able to cast spells. I am not advocating towards anyone to run this list but I am throwing it out there as another option for people to play who don't like the inconsistencies of 12 land or less Dredge. I am sure the one thing I am going to hear alot about is the fact that I only play 3x Ichorid and no Golgari Thug. Yes, I know, but the tournament I played at on wednesday out of 5 rounds I only killed with the combo (Flame-Kin) once. Every other game I played was won with Ichorid beats, 2/2 Zombies, and PImps.

As far as Tireless Tribe is concerned .... it has been amazing having this card. It can buy you so much time that it's ridiculous. I played against Zoo and it just stopped them cold, the Tribe blocks Goyf like a champ. But for those interested in Dredge (in particular a cheaper version of Dredge) certainly try this list it is a lot better than it seems.

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

yeah he did beat me pretty bad after i extirpated twice... i got bridge and grave troll and he rolled over me with narcomeba's.

sadface :(

[Mayk0l]

The extended list is strong, but there's not point in playing the Extended list in Legacy, where you can actually add LED and beat other combo decks. I don't know about your meta, but in my meta the top8 usually consists of at least 4 combo decks. The mirror with LED's as well as TES will knock you silly, even with 4 Therapies (LED, by the way, greatly increases your chance of more early Therapies in your graveyard).
Have you had to play against combo during the two tournaments you mentioned?
Tireless Tribe just seems so.. pointless. The deck is a monster, why slow it down for consistency it already has in the hands of a solid pilot?

[Pulp_Fiction]

For me I can't play the original deck list. There is a simple explanation for this ... I am very unlucky and I need to play a deck that is consistent. Of the 2-3 times I ran the 12 land version the only times I really lost were when the deck killed itself. And this is no joke, I can not mull into a SB card + mana, there aren't enough lands for me. The deck seemed to be either devastating the opponent or sitting there with with its thumb up its ass and there was no in-between. The extended list has speed and consistency (sort of I did have to mull to 3 once so I could get a hand without 2x Narcomoebas and Dread Returns in it) so that is why I play it. True storm combo is non existent in my meta because it would be a bad plan to bring it. Most people play gaycounterbalance.dec or stifletrash.dec so running decks that thrive on storm into a meta where every other opponent you play against has counterbalance and stifle is not a good plan. But regardless of the Dredge decklist if you expect a lot of combo why would you even play this? Wouldn't you rather run Dragon Stompy or Stax or something like that?

[Mayk0l]

Nah,
There were 4 Ichorid decks, 3 of them T8ed, together with 2 of the 4-5 TES. I was the only DS player (just missed T8).
It's not as bad as everyone suggests. Next time I'm just going to play Ichorid myself. It has a decent Storm MU, not great, but decent, but it's a hellovalot stronger against almost everything else than DS.

[Bongo]

I have played typical Dredge before and my least favorite cards in the deck were LED and Deep Analysis. I always felt the deck sacrificed consistency for speed.

I have to echo this. Even with LED, you lose against Storm unless you have a very good opening hand, it happened to me in a Top 8.
You can't play Magic with only 12 Lands, especially if you plan to cast spells without artifact acceleration. Even the Extended versions advocated to play more land, since hard-casting a Narcomoeba or Therapy is needed sometimes. This gets exacerbated after boarding, when you have to mull hands that contain the Chain or Needle, but no mana.


Cards you plan to cast:
4x Putrid Imp
4x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
2x Tolarian Winds

1x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Cephalid Sage
2x Dread Return
4x Ichorid
4x Cabal Therapy

4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
2x Golgari Thug
4x Bridge from Below
4x Narcomoeba

4x Tarnished Citadel
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass


As you can see, there are 14 cards you want to hard-cast, up to 18 with Therapy. Tolarian Winds may be questionable, but I really wanted more than 8 Draw-Spells. Being an instant is also a bonus and can kill an opponent out of nowhere.
I also like the 5c manabase, simply because it can't be stifled and opens up sideboard possibilities.

[whitshadw8]

I have to echo this. Even with LED, you lose against Storm unless you have a very good opening hand, it happened to me in a Top 8.
You can't play Magic with only 12 Lands, especially if you plan to cast spells without artifact acceleration. Even the Extended versions advocated to play more land, since hard-casting a Narcomoeba or Therapy is needed sometimes. This gets exacerbated after boarding, when you have to mull hands that contain the Chain or Needle, but no mana.


Cards you plan to cast:
4x Putrid Imp
4x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
2x Tolarian Winds

3x Tarnished Citadel

I think that having only 15 mana sources w/out might be more of a challenge then having 12 mana sources w/ Lion's Eye.
One of the the things I like about having the LED and Deep Analysis is the synergy. Second turn I find myself sometimes sacing the LED, poping Cephalid Coliseum, dredge, discard high dredgers and then doing Deep Analysis. Works quite nice if I have bad luck and dun mill high dredgers.

Second turn with Tolarian winds offers more draw power but if the hand or the graveyard unlucky does not have many dredgers, then you'll be stuck drawing (your list also has fewer discarding options). Maybe you'll decide to wait a couple of turns to see how things turn out before casting Tolarian Winds... . However I find that the more this deck waits, the lower the chances of winning.

What is your meta? I'm interested to know how long it takes for you to win against particular decks. With just 2 Tolarian Winds...it may be upped a bit for a more notable effect.

My meta is composed of mainly Thresh+Goblins, 2-3 Blechers, 1 Stax, and recently Imperial Painter (I hate the 1cc counter/kill-anything as well as the 1st turn Trinishphere postboard in that deck). I meet a mirror once in a while. Ok I'll have to admit I don't face Storm much, but the faster the better!

[Pulp_Fiction]

The Extended lists are almost just as fast as Legacy Dredge with a decent hand. My build (with Tireless Tribe) consistently kills around turns 2-4 and this is taking into account disruption from my opponent. I am not advocating that anyone needs to play basically extended Dredge however to the people who do run Dredge in Legacy I would strongly suggest that you at least put it together and test it out I am sure that the consistency of this build will impress!

@whitshadw8: Don't count LED as a manasource. LED can only cast things in the graveyard and activate lands! The reason I don't like LED in this deck is that it is phenomenal when you open up with Breakthrough on the stack blowing up LED pithching hand dredging the shit out of ur deck. This is why most people run the deck, the explosiveness. But I find that LED is way to situational. It is either amazing or awful and I found that around 40% of the time I had an LED in play I was wanting it to be PImp.

[edgewalker]

The Extended lists are almost just as fast as Legacy Dredge with a decent hand.

I'd like the emphasis this since the legacy lists are fast enough even with a mediocre hand. You can't compare the legacy lists to the extended ones, they are the same deck, but they're played in completely different formats. I never hard cast a Narcomoeba and rarely do it with a Therapy.

You're not playing the deck right if you think LED and Deep analysis are poor cards. Whenever I play this deck, I have to say that LED is probably the best card in the deck. It's one of the cards I love to see in my opening hand, it's broken with almost any card in the deck. Deep analysis isn't as good as LED, but that's why I play 2-3, being able to not fizzle isn't bad.

If I where to add more lands, I'd only go up to 13 or 14, there really isn't a need for more since you only need 1 most of the time.

[Bongo]

Pulp Fiction already nicely said what I wanted to, so I just add this:

LED requires a DA or Coliseum in the same turn to be really effective.
With only 12 Lands it also gets really hard to activate Coliseum, which is one of your best cards when playing against disruption. Also, to activate Coliseum in the first turn with LED, you need to be on the draw.

Without DA or Coliseum, paying 3 life to discard my hand isn't that good. Especially if you have spells you wanted to cast in the first place like Breakthrough or Careful Study.

I also swapped 1 Thug with the 4th Citadel, so that brings me up to 16 lands. Really, the major difference between this deck and the "regular" Dredge builds is:

- 4 LED
+4 Tarnished Citadel
- 2 DA
+2 Tolarian Winds

On paper, this looks weaker, but believe me, the additional consistency you gain is worth it. Consistency is important, especially since your goldfish speed doesn't speed up that much with LED (but the mulligan rate goes up). After changing to my current version, I found that I needed to mulligan less.

I found that 2 lands in play is optimal, as it enables the following plays:

- activating Coliseum
- playing Breakthrough for 1 to keep another Breakthrough or dodge Chalice 1
- playing a Therapy and Study/Breakthrough in the same turn
- hardcasting Moeba or Thug to get to three creatures for Dread Return
- Another minor benefit of not running LED is that you won't be affected by Chalice for 0 from your opponent


For these reasons I think it's better to run more land in Dredge.

[Dark_Cynic87]

WTF. This is nonsense. People were putting in SW to make this better/faster and LESS dependent on lands, not upping lands, dropping LEDs and dropping dredge count, not to mention DA, all in the name of consistancy.

Street Wraith, not this junk. That's 4x extra *FREE* dredge enablers. I have NO problem with 11 lands, and you guys are upping it to 16?

Meh.

Anyway, if you need 2 lands, why not run a LftL or a Dakmor Salvage? That's a better remedy. Not shifting the entire list towards a slower goldfish.

--DC

[edgewalker]

Actually, LED is good with all of your cards since worst case scenario you take 3 for dumping your hand. It plays well with Breakthrough, coliseum (one of those lands you have such a hard on for) deep analysis, careful study, and not to mention just dumping your hand like I mentioned before.

[Pulp_Fiction]

@edgewalker: sorry, I phrased that wrong. What I meant to imply was that the Extended version is basically just as fast and a lot more consistent and I implicated badly that Legacy Dredge needed the "decent hand" to keep pace with the consistency of a more Extended build. And please don't count LED as a manasource because when you have an opening hand which consists of something like 5 non-land cards, 1x Chain of Vapor and 1x LED you are NOT casting the Chain of Vapor. Sorry if I have a "hard on" for Cephalid Colisseum since it gives me the opportunity to win the game and cast Careful Study or ... god forbid ... SB cards.

Bongo prefers Tolarian Winds and I prefer Tireless Tribe, in extended this is another debate but in the end either one is just as good however I have found that if Tolarian Winds resolves you will win around 90% of the time but in a deck that runs so few lands I prefer the stalling power of the Tribe.

@Dark_Cynic87: ..... who said anything about Street Wraith? Dakmor Salvage is terrible since it comes into play tapped and how do you plan on casting Loam?

[Bongo]

edgewalker:
I also played with LED, it's just that you're very dependant on quite a few things going right. I know LED is good with Breakthrough and Careful Study, however you need a LAND to cast these in the first place, which is not that likely when running only 12 lands.

When you mulligan because you didn't have a land, the percentage of getting a Dredge card also goes down, which leads to greater inconsistencies.


Dark_Cynic87:
The goldfish isn't that much slower, I regularly kill between turn 2-4.
With LED this was more like turn 1 with a god hand, turn 2-4 when you get a good hand, but turn 3-7 when you don't draw the nuts or need to mulligan.


----

Another point that I find really important:

With more lands, you're able to fight through hate a lot better post-board, which is where the match gets decided, you win game 1 most of the time anyway. Hard-casting Ray of Revelation has been game-saving, and that would be highly unlikely when you only run 11 or 12 lands.
It also sucked to have the Chain in hand for the Leyline (or the Needle for Crypt), but no mana to cast it. You don't want to throw those games away because of mana issues, make your opponent work for their win.

[Mayk0l]

Yesterday I won three games turn 1 because of the LED smiling at me in my opening 7.
That beats TES.

Nuff Said


But I'll add:
With a LED in your opening 7, you need either a Land or a DA to go nuts. If you're on the draw, you can cast LED and activate the Coliseum on turn one, which is an insane play. You cannot do this with 2 lands.

[Bongo]

Three games is obviously big enough of a sample size

There are quite a few things that have to right for you to get that LED coliseum start:

1. Draw LED
2. Draw Coliseum
3. Be on the Draw
4. LED doesn't get countered (happens more than you like)

The more "if's" you have, the greater your inconsistencies are.

If you want to beat TES, I think Unmask is the way to go.

[Mayk0l]

If I win three games against one of the more difficult matchups then that outright proves its use. I've played TES a million times and you have two options with Ichorid
1) Race them with LED
2) Wreck them with Therapies
Killing off one of those routes for more consistency (and slow the deck down to slugspeed) doesn't sound like a top8 strategy to me.
Also, LED puts Therapies into your graveyard faster than a deck without it.

Unmask is good in type 1, but we don't run Street Wraith and cannot support the card properly because we don't run enough black cards and/or can't miss them.

Also, the LED Coliseum start is just one of the options you have with LED. LED DA, LED Coliseum, LED Blue Card/Land are all good.
Even better, those hands are all infinitely better than 'Land, go, Land, go, Tolarian Winds - Daze.. gg'. I can assure you that Tolarian Winds will get countered a lot more than turn 1 LED.

I don't think the deck needs more consistency. It hits the Top8's all over the world by getting quick kills in with LED. An option might be to remove the DA/LED in game 2 to add sideboard nastyness (an idea that has been discarded by a lot), but don't you agree that it's absolutely necessary with Ichorid to win game 1, and winning game 1 is preferably done by going insane with your deck?
The long lasting games you play with Ichorid should be game 2 or 3, not 1.