[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

[Final Fortune]

I've played everything, I took up Spy because it was cheap and it didn't make much if any difference over Griselbrand.

[Thrasher]

I see.To each is own, then.

[Mr. Froggy]

I feel Griselbrand can win games on his own, which is great.

He lets you decide when you can go off, while not making you commit to "one final turn".

[Final Fortune]

The point is that it's marginal and doesn't really define the deck, like I said people put too much time into worrying about the shit that doesn't matter like jizzing in the opponent's face with Griselbrand or Balustrade Spy instead of getting blown first. That's why I'm kind of leaning towards Chancellor of the Forge being the right call, a card that does something by itself when you draw it in your opening hand and increases the speed at which you either Cabal Therapy their hand or Dread Return any threat is always good where Dread Returning Griselbrand "RAWR" is often over kill and the card doesn't fucking do anything else in the deck.

I'm sure there are extreme situations where Dread Returning Griselbrand was your only out, but how do you calculate those extreme situations vs just reliably Therapying your opponent on turn 2, Dread Returning reliably turn 3 or swinging for +2 damage? Like I said, people are kind of stupid and biased and remembler all of the awesome Griselbrand combo kills, but they rarely bother to come up with the statistical date of the increased % to Cabal Therapy/Dread Return chance based on the token and I can assure you Dread Returning Chancellor of the Forge onto the board isn't exactly a joke either.

It's kind of like Dryad Arbor, except you get to keep your 8 card hand size and have another toy to bring back from the bin. And considering you never really play with Griselbrand post-board, a card that you could potentially keep post-board across a 3 game match may be more valuable in the long run especially against decks like Snapcaster Mage/Surgical Extraction where you don't really have anything good to board in anyway and Griselbrand is a brick without Dread Return if it gets RFGed.

[Mr. Froggy]

The point is that it's marginal and doesn't really define the deck, like I said people put too much time into worrying about the shit that doesn't matter like jizzing in the opponent's face with Griselbrand or Balustrade Spy instead of getting blown first. That's why I'm kind of leaning towards Chancellor of the Forge being the right call, a card that does something by itself when you draw it in your opening hand and increases the speed at which you either Cabal Therapy their hand or Dread Return any threat is always good where Dread Returning Griselbrand "RAWR" is often over kill and the card doesn't fucking do anything else in the deck.

I'm sure there are extreme situations where Dread Returning Griselbrand was your only out, but how do you calculate those extreme situations vs just reliably Therapying your opponent on turn 2, Dread Returning reliably turn 3 or swinging for +2 damage? Like I said, people are kind of stupid and biased and remembler all of the awesome Griselbrand combo kills, but they rarely bother to come up with the statistical date of the increased % to Cabal Therapy/Dread Return chance based on the token and I can assure you Dread Returning Chancellor of the Forge onto the board isn't exactly a joke either.

It's kind of like Dryad Arbor, except you get to keep your 8 card hand size and have another toy to bring back from the bin. And considering you never really play with Griselbrand post-board, a card that you could potentially keep post-board across a 3 game match may be more valuable in the long run especially against decks like Snapcaster Mage/Surgical Extraction where you don't really have anything good to board in anyway and Griselbrand is a brick without Dread Return if it gets RFGed.

Wasn't it tested before with less-than-stellar results though?

Also, what are your thoughts on Leyline in the SB? Is it really worth it? This is a deck that can't really afford to mulligan too aggressively, so I'm curious.

[Final Fortune]

As far as I recall it was never tested and the 4 combo slots harking all the way back to 4 Cephalid Sage/Flame Kin Zealots have always been gospel, and I've been playing this deck longer than anyone else I know of.

Yes Leyline of Sanctity is worth it, it may as well be a free win vs ANT if you draw it and if they Chain of Vapor it you go back to 8 cards in hand immediately. If they do anything else, you've bought yourself a turn(s) to Unmask or find a Cabal Therapy. Everything about this deck is about buying time, once you get rolling you've pretty much won the resource war.

[Thrasher]

Just in case it helps,i have done 50 goldfishes with and without Chancellor of the Forge. I know 50 isn't much, but i didn't have much time.
T1 therapies without chancellor: 16/50
T1 therapies with chancellor: 22/50

I checked my last report,too. I have reanimated griselbrand 4 times in 12 games, with it being the only out in 2 of those 4 games. It's indeed marginal, but it did its job. Sadly i have nothing about the 400+ people tournament i did before, i just remember i stole a game against s&t thanks to griselbrand.

Dread returning Chancellor of the forge is not a joke if you have bridges. If you're playing against a decent opponent (s)he'll try to exile them. Reanimating chancellor leaves you with a 5/5(which can be stp'ed) and one,maybe two 1/1 haste. I know people who have not played the deck much are more the "yeee, pay 7 life, combo, ha-ha" kind, but that's not a reason to cut Griselbrand in my list.

What about Dryad Arbor vs Chancellor? Dryad triggers bridge, the token doesn't. You get to choose when to play Dryad, Chancellor only works in your first upkeep. The token can be bolted, playing dryad arbor means that you won't have to pass priority before playing therapy. Chancellor is a decent DR target and leaves you with 8 cards in hand, though.

[Final Fortune]

The thing is that Chancellor of the Forge is never your only Dread Return target, I routinely Dread Return Chancellor of the Annex and 99% of aggro-control decks can not deal with that (ala Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay) and the control decks that can deal with that (ala Swords to Plowshares) have no way to kill their own creatures so Chancellor of the Forge becomes a serious wrecking machine.

Dryad Arbor might be better than Chancellor of the Forge in hand but it's strictly worse in the graveyard as a Dread Return target.

It merrits a lot of testing, vs Elves I could see it being a problem pre-board, but 4 Contagion and 3 Sickening Shoal is a lot of hate vs Elves post-board and increasing the odds of Cabal Therapying by ~40% on T2 is really huge if that's accurate.

[Thrasher]

I don't think those goldfishes are too reliable, but i guess they give a rough idea of how it works. I should split between the "forced" Therapies (when i force the discard with phantasmagorian, something i wouldn't always do in a real game) and the clean ones. I'll do a more accurate test when i'll be back home, at least with more than 50 goldfishes.

On another note,i'm currently playing a different sideboard focused on both answering storm and rip. I've done a quite accurate testing for that, but it's kinda heretic,so i'll share it as soon as i have the time to write something decent to support it. Still, i manage to get ~ 55% of openings with an answer to rip, so i guess it can't be worse than playing lands & claims.

[AmokPL]

On another note,i'm currently playing a different sideboard focused on both answering storm and rip. I've done a quite accurate testing for that, but it's kinda heretic,so i'll share it as soon as i have the time to write something decent to support it. Still, i manage to get ~ 55% of openings with an answer to rip, so i guess it can't be worse than playing lands & claims.

really looking forward to see that sb.

[meffeo]

really looking forward to see that sb.

+1

[Mr. Froggy]

really looking forward to see that sb.

Has me really interested as well, care to share?

[Thrasher]

All right. Back when i started with the deck i used to play the "green" sideboard. That strategy sometimes actually removes the hate, but i almost never won the game after that: ending up with an empty grave and 6 cards in hand definitely sucks. What i needed was something that could remove rip and leave me with a dredger. Basically, after a big tournament in september, i found myself thinking: "Would i have won if i had had Force of Will?". The answer was "yes".

Countering rip means that you'll be able to discard in your first cleanup step, counter the hate and dredge the turn after. That seems better than "play a land,cast the antihate, wait 2 turns, dredge". Furthermore, you don't have to play garbage such as Forest in the sideboard, meaning that you'll be able to play a proper sideboard, without wasting 11 slots for rip/cage. The blue antihate requires just 8 pieces, and they're much more flexible than the green ones. Force of Will works very well against storm, too, and we all know that it isn't a great matchup, the other one, Disrupting Shoal, is strictly worse than FoW, basically it's a FoW with 7 pitches(4 narcomoeba, 3 other Shoals).

So, here it is.
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Flex Slots, i'm currently trying Faerie Macabre, the number of reanimator decks is increasing, where i play.

How it works:
Basically, you must play 4 Gitaxian Probe MD, so that you end up with 8 blue cards.

VS Grave Hate:

Force and Shoal are sided in together only for rip or cage (against cage shoal becomes significantly worse, though). Diluting the deck versus relic or crypt is just dumb, as there's no need to counter them. Siding in the counters means:
1. Removing the combo kill. Never cut the dredgers. Countering rip and dying due to no dredgers sucks.
2. Remove some DR's. That's needed, you can win with bridges, specially against an opponent who "wasted" a turn playing his hate.
3. Cut something else to reach 60 cards. Adding Mindbreak Trap works if you want more pitches. Most of the times you'll need to counter just one piece of hate, that's why 16 blue cards should be enough.

VS Storm:

4 Force + 4 Mindbreak are nuts. Basically you get to play the control deck until you strip your opponent's hand with therapies. Never side out Chancellors or Therapies. Griselbrand + Flayer are easy side-outs. Chancellor of the Annex is just better versus storm.

VS Omnitell:

Player: I'll cast show and tell.
Me: That's fine.
Player puts Omniscience.
I put Griselbrand.
Player: I'll cast EtE.
Me: I'll pay 14 life, draw 14, force your EtE.

This has happened more than once in my tests, it was hilarious. This works because often omnitell players will have to play S&T, because Dream Halls is just not fast enough.

VS Elves.

Now, this is tricky. I don't wanna lose 100% against reanimator, so i had to cut contagion&Sickening Shoal. Force sure helps against the problematic stuff (they usually can't win without a huge GSZ, Order/Behemoth,glimpse), covering even something removal can't, but pitching a black card is a lot easier.



Does this SB completely solve the grave-hate problem? Definitely not, it still has flaws(mainly it can get daze'd or fow'ed), but i think it's the best if you don't wanna die to random hate and if you wanna have a good shot at beating storm.

Feedback is appreciated, as long as it's not stupid stuff coming from a lack of testing. Thank you.

[Mr. Froggy]

I find your SB very interesting, but isn't the point of Manaless no interactivity between players?

[Final Fortune]

I've tried Force of Will before with limited success, the problem is that the 12-16 blue cards are always really, really bad i.e. Disrupting Shoal and Gitaxian Probe forces you to cut either Chancellor of the Annex, Unmask or your combo finisher and either of the first two reduces your disruption vs Storm game 1. I don't think it's unplayable, but all of the free black creature removal does a better job at handling Deathrite Shaman than Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal does at handling Rest in Peace, and with a deck like this I think you just have to resolve yourself to taking a Leyline of the Void, Rest in Piece or Grafdigger's Cage on the chin every once and awhile and just hope you get thru' your pairings in a tournament. I don't want to say the deck is a glass cannon, because it's definitely not, but if people want to hate you out of the metagame with very specific hate cards they will. It's kind of like Affinity, everybody is terrified of Hurkyl's Recall, except nobody actually plays Hurkyl's recall. In the case of Dredge, RIP is already leaving the MD of Miracles because True Name Nemesis has dethroned Tarmogoyf as king dingaling, so I think focus firing Deathrite Shaman is the way to go because it's the most achievable card to fight back against.

Nothing is better vs Reanimator than Faerie Macabre, maybe Leyline of the Void if they aren't expecting it. I've gone with the black Leyline a couple of times when that Hermit Druid deck was really popular online, it irritates ANT well too which is a plus. You may want to go with that.

[Thrasher]

@Mr. Froggy: We already have interaction: Cabal therapy, Unmask, Chancellor of the Annex, Mindbreak Trap. You can't win versus storm/elves/reanimator without interacting.


@Final Fortune: I see your point. I usually don't have problems with Deathrite Shaman, i have 13 outs to it maindeck, that's why i didn't dedicate any sb slot to it. I did perfectly fine at small tournaments without running Fow's, but in bigger tournaments i often find at least 2-3 decks playing rip, which means i'll hardly top8. Since manaless is my main deck i want a way to be able to deal with a variegated metagame, just to be able to play it in big tournaments when you can't really predict the metagame perfectly. The metagame here is still evolving, i often see team america and some reanimator. The number of nemesis is definitely increasing, though (I love that, seeing an opponent that taps out is always great). Hopefully the number of rip will decrease.

Leyline doesn't seem a bad idea at all, i wonder if the card disadvantage hurts. I think it deserves a test.

By the way, i did 50 more goldfishes with the red chancellor and got similar results. The thing is getting interesting. Being able to therapy reliably on turn 2 would help a lot the combo matchup, i guess. I'd say it requires more tests, but it looks promising. Not strictly better than Griselbrand+Flayer, but it's got some points in his favor.

[Final Fortune]

It's not a combo finisher, but it's not a bad Dread Return target either and considering the utility it gives you in your oppening hand being able to Cabal Therapy on T2 and Dread Return on T3 reliably it doesn't have to be in order to win you the game. I'm very much in favor of this card, it quietly wins games on T2/T3 instead of loudly wins games on T4. I can't say it's strictly better, but considering our end game is god worthy, I think it's really important to focus on the cards that prevent the opponent from killing us before we can reach said end game.

I may be over SBing vs Deathrite Shaman honestly, I just get that "Die mother fucker, die mother fucker die" song from Office Space stuck in my head whenever I see one of those resolve. I may try something like 4 Mindbreak Trap, 3 Leyline of Sanctity, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Contagion for slightly more diversity. I feel a lot better about leaving Chancellor of the Forge in the MD post-board than the combo kill package because it actually still does stuff if you draw it and they RFG your Dread Returns etc.

The deck feels really solid, I definitely think I can take a match away from ANT quite easily, the SB could deal with Hermit.dec savagely if I wanted it to and that really only leaves Belcher as your worst combo match up followed by TES.

Our natural predator is always going to be Reanimator, but in the environments where it's right to play Manaless Dredge i.e. Deathrite Shaman and Surgical Extraction galore, then Dredge is the better graveyard deck vs that hate.

[Mr. Froggy]

Played vs TurboEldrazi on MTGO;
Game 1 was really one-sided in my favor, even if I saw my first dredger 3-4 cards down
Game 2 I came back from 30 card Bojuka Bog (but he got me with a 2nd)
Game 3 I had the combo for Dread Return into Griselbrand, but I was scared of Crop Rotation to Bojuka Bog so I Therapy with 3 creatures (Shadow, Shadow, Narcomoeba) naming Crop Rotation (he had 4 cards in hand) and see Land, Land, Land, Bojuka Bog -_-

Damn it...

Was so close...

[Michael Keller]

I think I'm going to chime in on this later.

[Mr. Froggy]

I think I'm going to chime in on this later.

Would be of great help, really. Need some tips on playing the deck.