[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

[sherko7]

i have to disagree with this mate. i wonder why we need to adapt to the rise of jund? why fear deathrite shaman when using manaless dredge? we have atleast a minimum of 8 cards ( 4 phantasmagorian, 4 streetwraith) as an answer to turn 1 deathrite (for hollywoods build they got 12 cards in MD) and we only need 1!, just 1 to show up.

due to the fact that they have 4 MD GY hate in the form of shaman, some builds dont bring in GY hate in their SB anymore. if you ask me im more afraid of decks who cant use shaman coz for sure they have 5-6 GY hate in their SB specially decks who got access for white mana.



I'll only agree to this only if i will see atleast 8 people who "consistently" plays storm in our country and always make it to the top 8, otherwise ill not change our usual SB cards like reverent silence and natures claim, on the other hand i always have a place for chancellor of the annex in my SB but not in MD.


for Unmask.... i think i will only use it if bazaar of baghdad is legal in legacy.. just my 2 cents

This is true. I play in the same area as this master dredger. We only get an avg of 2 people playing storm per 50-80 player tourney. I have simply decided to give up boarding in against Storm and rather focus on playing against the more dominant archetypes/decks (i.e. DRS.dec, GSZ.dec). Sure, we have a healthy matchup against those decks pre-board, and some people even like to argue that we have more than 60% positive matchup against those decks seeing as they would need to mull into turn 1 DRS to have an edge.

Timewalking myself twice for the sake of killing of a turn one DRS is no problem. Like Hollywood said, they won't be able to win against me during those 2 turns, even if their DRS survives somehow. I'm still playing the 4 Claim 4 Rev Silence 7 land 4 Removal SB and I'm liking it against the current meta. Chancellor MD though is something that might be worth a try.

[SBGpinas]

It's not a question of adapting the deck vs Jund, it's a question of adapting the deck vs the metagame that Jund has created. Post Deathrite Shaman, players aren't SBing dedicated Dredge hate, Leyline of the Void or Grafdiggers Cage, and they aren't SBing significant graveyard hate in addition to Deathrite Shaman. If nobody is playing dedicated Dredge hate and nobody is playing graveyard hate in addition to Deathrite Shaman, then why should we dedicate 4 MD slots on a completely mediocre MD card like Dryad Arbor and 7 SB slots on a SB card that only answers half of the dedicated Dredge hate anyway? If there are arguably more Storm and S&T decks in a tournament than there are Leylines of the Void, then ask yourself how much utility Dryad Arbor, Fetchlands and Reverent Silence really have. Should we be any less scared of decks that can Storm us out on turn 2 than decks that may SB Leyline of the Void? Because I'd much rather address my win% vs an entire archetype of decks that people are playing than MD and SB 11 cards just to check for any monsters under the bed.

Furthermore, you can't even know if your opponent is or isn't playing Leyline of the Void in his SB for certain, are you going to automatically SB in 7 cards every game 2 and make your deck that much worse just on the off chance he SBs Leyline of the Void? And if you're not automatically SBing in those 7 cards, are you really happy with playing SB cards that you only use in 1/3 of your games? I really don't think playing Dryad Arbor over Chancellor of the Annex and/or Unmask is worth having a marginal chance of beating a deck with Leyline of the Void compared to having a good chance of beating any combo archetype game 1 and a great chance game 2.

The deck has to concentrate on the matchups it can win, not firing back at silver bullets. If you run into the guy SBing 4 Rest of Peace, then it either wasn't your lucky day or you were playing the wrong deck in the first place.

Just my two cents...

I understand your point, and what you say is valid in a meta where everybody switches decks every event... everybody's playing the flavor of the month, thus everybody else is dedicating their SB to beat that one deck.

Not so where I come from...

Where I come from (and rektareloaded and sherko7), there is not one deck to beat. People generally stick to what they know, even if there's a new DTB in town. UW Miracles players still play UW, Burn players still play burn, and more importantly, Dredge players still play Dredge.

Thus, everybody and their mother dedicates slots in their 15 for Dredge-hoser cards. What changes with every event is the number of these cards in the SB, but they never go away - even when it is detrimental to their deck design. It's because nobody wants an auto-loss when they do face Dredge.

So in our meta, we always expect everybody to playing a few copies of either Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and/or Rest in Peace. And so far, we've been right. So we have no choice but to prepare Silver bullets, because nearly 100% of the time, our opponent will play dedicated Dredge hate during game 2 and 3.

[slave]

...in our meta, we always expect everybody to playing a few copies of either Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and/or Rest in Peace. And so far, we've been right. So we have no choice but to prepare Silver bullets, because nearly 100% of the time, our opponent will play dedicated Dredge hate during game 2 and 3.

Makes perfect sense.
I don't get a lot of Storm either, so my side is similar to yours. Over here it's very blue and combo happy.
But I do like the discussion about beating Storm

I don't think I could drop the Dryad Arbors though, it saved me being stuck on zero or two creatures plenty, regardless of the whole sideboarding for answers blah blah.
I'm gonna have to start recording my win/loss against certain decks with the deck/side I'm running.

Final Fortune, I'll give your deck/side a spin, see how I go with it.
Curious to see how Annex/Unmask do in the same deck with side of Angel/Mindbreak....

[ykpon]

Dryad Arbor is just a mediocre card that doesn't do anything signifcant until turn 3, where Unmask is the card that lets you live vs Storm and other combo decks in the MD.

The fundamental problem with Manaless Dredge is that it doesn't interact on turns one and two vs decks that have strategic superiority, MDing Chancellor of the Annex and Unamsk are what solves that problem - at least as much as it can be solved.

I think just -4 Sickening Shoal, -4 Dryad Arbor for +4 Chancellor of the Annex, +4 Unmask and then having a SB of 4 Mindbreak Trap, 4 Angel of Depair and 7x other cards of merrit gives you a much better fighting chance vs Storm.

I'm still not sure about Arbors. I understand they are really mediocre without green sb but cutting them completely means cutting 1/4 of all our creatures while early Dread Return is important in a lot of matchups (especially against Storm).

However probably Dryad isn't the best creature you can run here. It's obviously better than Memnite, but how about Shield Sphere which can give us a couple of additional turns against aggro? Another option is Gitaxian Probe which isn't a creature but digs for other creatures and seems to be better against Storm. Dryad is uncounterable and sometimes allows to pay for Daze/Cursecatcher though.

i have to disagree with this mate. i wonder why we need to adapt to the rise of jund? why fear deathrite shaman when using manaless dredge? we have atleast a minimum of 8 cards ( 4 phantasmagorian, 4 streetwraith) as an answer to turn 1 deathrite (for hollywoods build they got 12 cards in MD) and we only need 1!, just 1 to show up.

Eight isn't enough for one to show up, that's why we run more than 8 dredgers here. Twelve is already a good number but, unlike Chancellor, removal isn't really a good answer to Shaman. You timewalk yourself twice with Shoal, then they timewalk you one more time with Thoughtseize or cast another Shaman and at this point you understand you can't really win this game anymore. And it's even worse against BUG where countering your removal is just a blowout. Chancellor is uncounterable and saves number of cards in your hand, that's why it should be back now when everyone and his mother run Deathrites.

[Final Fortune]

I'm still not sure about Arbors. I understand they are really mediocre without green sb but cutting them completely means cutting 1/4 of all our creatures while early Dread Return is important in a lot of matchups (especially against Storm).

However probably Dryad isn't the best creature you can run here. It's obviously better than Memnite, but how about Shield Sphere which can give us a couple of additional turns against aggro? Another option is Gitaxian Probe which isn't a creature but digs for other creatures and seems to be better against Storm. Dryad is uncounterable and sometimes allows to pay for Daze/Cursecatcher though.



Eight isn't enough for one to show up, that's why we run more than 8 dredgers here. Twelve is already a good number but, unlike Chancellor, removal isn't really a good answer to Shaman. You timewalk yourself twice with Shoal, then they timewalk you one more time with Thoughtseize or cast another Shaman and at this point you understand you can't really win this game anymore. And it's even worse against BUG where countering your removal is just a blowout. Chancellor is uncounterable and saves number of cards in your hand, that's why it should be back now when everyone and his mother run Deathrites.

Unmask is just clearly better vs combo in every conceivable way compared to Dryad Arbor, I find the card far too linear to bother playing with personally - it does practically nothing before turn 3 -

[Michael Keller]

Unmask is just clearly better vs combo in every conceivable way compared to Dryad Arbor, I find the card far too linear to bother playing with personally - it does practically nothing before turn 3 -

That's really not true. Dryad Arbor is a major contributor to powering outer faster Dread Returns, which enables us to combo out faster than our opponents.

That's a primary reason why it's in the deck.

[Malakai]

Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace are ubiquitous. I understand regular dredge's plan, but what can manaless even do against turn 1 Relic on a stick?

[sconnell]

Unmask is just clearly better vs combo in every conceivable way compared to Dryad Arbor, I find the card far too linear to bother playing with personally - it does practically nothing before turn 3 -

That's really not true. Dryad Arbor is a major contributor to powering outer faster Dread Returns, which enables us to combo out faster than our opponents.

That's a primary reason why it's in the deck.

I'm on the Dryad Arbor/Hollywood side on this. Arbor is also a Therapy enabler, and having it in the deck increases the chances of a turn 2 Therapy. Arbor is also a creature, which is relevant for Nether Shadow and Grave-Troll. It is one of the cards I could see being taken out of the deck if a better candidate comes up, but I'm not sure that's happened.

Unmask takes 2 cards out of your hand and means you can't DDD. That means you can only Unmask turn 2 if you've gotten a second dredger into the graveyard, so it's not actually guaranteed that you can even play Unmask turn 2.

[sconnell]

Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace are ubiquitous. I understand regular dredge's plan, but what can manaless even do against turn 1 Relic on a stick?

I'm guessing by "relic on a stick" you mean Deathrite?

Phantasmagorian/Street Wraith tricks, and removal. See http://jupitergames.info/articles/20...nplugged-vol-i

[ykpon]

Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace are ubiquitous. I understand regular dredge's plan, but what can manaless even do against turn 1 Relic on a stick?

Aforementioned plus Chancellor of the Annex.

That's really not true. Dryad Arbor is a major contributor to powering outer faster Dread Returns, which enables us to combo out faster than our opponents.

That's a primary reason why it's in the deck.

But is it better than Shield Sphere? And do you feel that four is the exact number of cmc0 creatures this deck needs?

[sconnell]

But is [Dryad Arbor] better than Shield Sphere? And do you feel that four is the exact number of cmc0 creatures this deck needs?

Arbor is clearly > other "free" creature options, and should be a 4-of, if you're running Nature's Claim or Reverent Silence in the board.

If not however ... both (i) what's the optimal number of "free" creatures? and (ii) what's the best "free" creature? become questions worth asking.

Regarding the second question, our options are (unless I missed anything):
1-power:
1/1 Dryad Arbor - vulnerable to land removal (especially Wasteland), can't be targeted by Abrupt Decay
1/1 Memnite - vulnerable to artifact removal
0-power:
0/1 assorted Kobolds
0/2 Ornithopter - vulnerable to artifact removal, can block flyers
0/3 Phyrexian Walker - vulnerable to artifact removal
0/6 Shield Sphere - vulnerable to artifact removal, high toughness means it's hard to kill with direct damage

As far as 1-power creatures go, the main different between Arbor and Memnite is that Arbor's vulnerable to Wasteland and immune to Abrupt Decay, and Memnite is the opposite. I don't think either is clearly superior.
Shield Sphere seems to be the clear winner in the 0-power creature camp, and I think is probably best overall. It can probably block an early creature several time before dying, and can't just be bolted out of the way.

Edit: Dryad Arbor is a land so is immune to counterspells, and doesn't give the opponent an opportunity to respond. These are fairly major omissions, and probably tip things towards Arbor even without wanting green mana.

[ykpon]

Shield Sphere seems to be the clear winner in the 0-power creature camp, and I think is probably best overall. It can probably block an early creature several time before dying, and can't just be bolted out of the way

Running Arbor over Shield also somehow decreases a chance of turn 2 Dread Return because you can only play one per turn. On the other hand, Arbor makes it possible to cast stuff under Thalia or Cursecatcher.

[Michael Keller]

Dryad Arbor is better than any and all of the other suggestions here, folks. It does not require using the stack and hits the battlefield immediately just like the others do.

The bonus of it being a creature is what makes it great in Manaless. (That and it adds critical green mana.) It's primarily used to facilitate Dread Return and to soften your resources for games two and three. This is where adjusting the sideboard becomes important. It's got too many positive attributes associated with it in this particular deck to remove it for creatures like Memnite or Shield Sphere. I get that you can Dread Return faster that way, but Dryad Arbor is really important for the aforementioned reasons.

That to me is just too good to pass up. The less interaction, the better.

[slave]

Dryad Arbor is better than any and all of the other suggestions here, folks. It does not require using the stack and hits the battlefield immediately........That to me is just too good to pass up. The less interaction, the better.

And this is why I'd rather run it, regardless of game 2 & 3.

Shield SPhere isn't bad, but it can be countered and faces just as much hate. Lets be honest, it's not like our opponent can't see our Dread Return sitting in the graveyard, and they won't miss the fact we're putting a third creature into play.
Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance etc., are fairly common round me, and Shield Sphere doesn't dodge them.
But what about Thalia, Daze, Lodestone Golem etc etc. Arbor has saved me from taxing effects quite a few times too. If our opponent has a taxing effect in play, we can't combo without Arbor unless we hit removal, for which we may need Arbor also.

In defence of Shield Sphere I will say this - opponent creatures getting chumped by Sphere wouldn't cause you to lose your bridges, whereas Arbor has the potential to actually kill something if you chump with it. This can be a good or bad thing depending on game state.

[kwis]

Dryad also pays for Daze mana, which can be relevant.

[Final Fortune]

That's really not true. Dryad Arbor is a major contributor to powering outer faster Dread Returns, which enables us to combo out faster than our opponents.

That's a primary reason why it's in the deck.

Yes it is, disrupting the opponent on T2 is more important than Dread Returning on T3 vs Storm, and I don't think Dryad Arbor necessarily contributes more to a T3 Dread Return than Gitaxian Probe does.

@Sconnel

The odds of being able to Unmask on T2 are significantly higher than the odds of being able to play Dryad Arbor and flashback Cabal Therapy on T2 for certain, and furthermore playing Dryad Arbor has virtually the same effect as playing Unmask on your ability to Dredge because you've decreased your hand size below 8 cards for the clean up step.

Saying Dryad Arbor is a creature in the graveyard is about as relevant as saying "it pitches to Force of Will," IMO. Those observations are difficult to quantify, because who is to say being a creature in the graveyard is any more or less important than revealing your opponent's hand in the case of Gitaxian Probe etc. etc.

@Dryad Arbor

I'm not saying Dryad Arbor is a bad card, I'm saying Dryad Arbor is a linear card that requires a Cabal Therapy or Dread Return in order to be relevant, where a card like Unmask or Gitaxian Probe always advance your game state regardless of your board position or graveyard composition by decelerating your opponent or accelerating you a turn earlier than Dryad Arbor in most cases.

As far as synonyms for Dryad Arbor are concerned, the obvious replacement is Chancellor of the Forge for being an uncounterable 1/1 with Haste that can deal 2 damage before T3 and not require you to play a card from your hand and reduce your hand size below 8. Furthermore Chancellor of the Forge is a reasonable Dread Return target, provided no better targets are available. I think it's probably the closest analogue to Dryad Arbor, altho' I can't say it's any better. For all I know, you should be playing both if you're trying to maximize your T2 Cabal Therapys and T3 Dread Returns. It'd be interesting to test their effects on your average turn for disruption your opponent or resolving Dread Returns compared to the 8 Bauble builds at least.

Edit: Or you should be playing 4 Dryad Arbor and 4 Fetchlands instead of 4 Chancellor of the Forge in order to condense your SB space for Reverent Silence, that actually makes a world of sense.

@Thread

Whether or not you're going to play Dryad Arbor over any other card in your MD is your business, but I'm pretty sure Chancellor of the Annex is better than Sickening Shoal in the MD - that card has always been awful IMO -, and I'm positive not playing with Unmask some where in your 75 is a mistake you'll pay for dearly vs combo. Maybe you'll find an amalgamation of ideas between a MD with 4 Chancellor of the Annex and Dryad Arbor in the MD, and 4 Mindbreak Trap and Unmask, 4 Reverent Silence and 3 Fetchlands in the SB.

[sherko7]

Unmask is clearly good but I think a deck like this already lacks space to play 4. I wouldn't cut Dryad Arbor as it has saved me shitload of times. Removal can probably be cut but not quite yet... Not quite yet...

Haven't really tried Chancellor of the Annex, but I do agree that it is MD-able material. I'd rather not play it from the board. The deck is already quite fast, not as fast as TES and ANT (probably somewhere between TES/ANT and Burn) but probably by playing Chancellor we can close the gap between us and TES/ANT. :)

[ykpon]

As far as synonyms for Dryad Arbor are concerned, the obvious replacement is Chancellor of the Forge for being an uncounterable 1/1 with Haste that can deal 2 damage before T3 and not require you to play a card from your hand and reduce your hand size below 8.

It isn't that obvious because Chancellor of the Forge is the only free creature (apart from Pact of the Titan, lol) that doesn't work with Bridge from Below.

Edit: Or you should be playing 4 Dryad Arbor and 4 Fetchlands instead of 4 Chancellor of the Forge in order to condense your SB space for Reverent Silence, that actually makes a world of sense.

Adding maindeck fetchlands is an interesting idea but 4+4 seems to be too many because of all those hands with 2+ Arbors while not being able to play them all.

[sherko7]

It isn't that obvious because Chancellor of the Forge is the only free creature (apart from Pact of the Titan, lol) that doesn't work with Bridge from Below.



Adding maindeck fetchlands is an interesting idea but 4+4 seems to be too many because of all those hands with 2+ Arbors while not being able to play them all.

Agreed. Also kinda sucks to lower the deck's threat density.

I'm kinda rethinking slipping back Noxious Revival into an SB that looks like this:

2 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
3 Nature's Claim
4 Reverent Silence
2 Contagion
3 Noxious Revival

Noxious Revival helps you get back Dredge's hate cards against Grafdigger's Cage, as well as quite a lot of other things like returning that sac'd Narcomoeba, protecting that Bridge, etc... Its a great utility card especially against today's meta IMHO.

[rektareloaded]

with SnT variants showing up again lately heres a SB that i can think of....

1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Kederekt Leviathan (just for SNT and/or enchantress maybe???)
4 Dryad Arbor (yup thats correct coz my MD is dakmor/ghast)
4 Reverent Silence (i would rather lose to a belcher/TES/ANT than to a turn 0 or turn 2 enchantment with a -100% misplay )
4 Chancellor of the Annex

hopefully this will work in our local