I understand the point your making but do not necessarily agree with your conclusions. Your deck is far more dependant than mine on bridge from below which is susceptible to a lot more hate then the rest of the deck. Because you HAVE to get the bridge from below (about 2 in fact) into the graveyard you are looking at....
I have never failed to produce a turn 3 sutured ghoul for the win with my deck BUT if yours can reliably pull off a turn 2 win it is superior. I'm going to test a build more like what you are advocating. My suspicion is your deck trades dependability for speed but I want to find out for sure.
Street Wraith is like washing your car every week to increase your fuel efficiency. While theres no question stuck on dirt would make your vehicle heavier, the advantages offered by washing it weekly are far outweighed by the costs.
That may be true, but I have found that Ichorid hate, atm, is largely in the form of grave hate that hurts ghoul the same, if not more than, the other strategy. Furthermore, I would not advocate Zealot as the only win, although I don't think you are saying that either, so the destruction of bridge does not turn off things like dread into titan or whatever. Furthermore, I feel that ghoul win requires more cards that only work together. Bridge is always good, breath is only good with ghoul.
Either way, even with Ghoul win I would advise testing 1 or 2 sages. Sages are like a free bazaar activation, as long as you run eough dread returns to facilitate it.
I can gaurentee that, save for the mull to zero senario or particularly odd situations, Ichorid will destroy its entire deck by turn 3, and I'm sure the same is true regardless of the build atm, simply due to its incredible effeciency. To that end, I'm not sure there is a loss of dependability. Extirpate has largely proven itself worthless vs ichorid, and save the mirror, most decks do not run creatures that kill themselves, so bridge removal tends to not be a problem. However, that can easily change as well.
I'm just not a fan of any creature that requires useless cards to augment it, as I would prefer to run stuff that does stuff in other senarios in those slots.
As for Street Wraith, I think of them as serum powder 5-8, if they're in your oppening hand, they essentially give you a free mulligan, except they dredge instead of drawing, which increases the deck's initial output. When they aren't in your hand, they still serve function as a black creature for ichorid and 3/4 bodies for Ghoul, if you go that route. I'm just not sure what you would rather run in that slot that would be more effecient. The deck has an adequate number of dredgers, so unless you would rather run something like nethere spirit, which is going to be unneccessary most of the time, and just serve the same purpose as wratih in the yard, except they're smaller and don't do stuff if they're in your hand.
Street Wraith is like washing your car every week to increase your fuel efficiency.
Street Wraith is like washing your car in gasoline and then lighting it, it's that explosive.
If Street Wraith was being run just for deck thinning purposes it would make some sense to cut him. But it does so much more, it feeds Ichorid and Ghoul, speeds up your clock, makes mulligan into Bazaar easier and makes you better vs. Waste on Bazaar. All Street Wraith costs you is 2 life, which barely ever matters in decks like Ichorid where you either win big or go home.
Ichorid's current incarnation is far too fast and demanding design wise for any extra cards. As it is, only one bazaar activation is neccessary, if even that. Field is far too slow and unreliable to be worth it. You should be winning by turn 2/3 every game, field doesn't even do anything within that span of time.
Ichorid's current incarnation is far too fast and demanding design wise for any extra cards. As it is, only one bazaar activation is neccessary, if even that. Field is far too slow and unreliable to be worth it. You should be winning by turn 2/3 every game, field doesn't even do anything within that span of time.
If you play a Bazaar and it gets Wastelanded on turn 1, then you're not winning in 2-3 turns; therefore, Petrified Field still "does" something.
However, you could be absolutely correct in stating that Field is no longer necessary; it will likely depend on how the format will handle Ichorid, and what tools Ichorid will need to lean on to survive or win. We had an initial report from Rich Shay and his performance in a small local event on TMD - it will be very interesting how Ichorid will perform in larger events, and how other decks will respond to the Ichorid threat. Should be exciting to see.
If you play a Bazaar and it gets Wastelanded on turn 1, then you're not winning in 2-3 turns
That is incorrect, from my understanding. Ichorid, as of now, is completely capable of winning with only one bazaar activation, due to a variety of reasons, including sage and narcs.
Unmask is indeed not that great any more. Furthermore, you absolotuly require more disruption, and you have way too many dredgers and dorks. Honestly, you do not need shadows any more, the deck is faster, and narcs tend to provide all the food neccessary.
I would absolutely advise running both chalice and leyline. They serve the important service of disruption "normal" decks severly, granting you even that one turn neccessary to fend off control or combo. Take chalice, without it, you give control slaver the time to set up. With it, you take down their primary combatants of your deck (crypts) and similtaneously steal from them that speed from moxen they need to gain an edge. Leyline, in addition to instantly winning you the mirror, likewise hurts combo and combo/control's decks capacity to race you. Often, the yard is relied on as an imporant resource.
That being said, when have you ever found that shadow accelerates your kill? I find that, often, it doesn't, as you are looking to win by turn 2, and turn 3 if you have to, it will only be useful if it gets bazaared away with the first activation, and you want to devout that to dredgers and ichroids. Narc essentially replaced shadow as an essentially superior and faster dork.
Cut Unmask, as unmask is only good in your oppening hand with another black card that you don't need as a dredger, and the effect is generally not as swiningy as you want it to be. Very often, Chalice or Leyline are much less demanding and much faster.
I would then advise cutting 2 Shambling Shells. You could also consider replacing the two shells with darkblast, as often it serves the same function, save pitching to Ichorid (which I find you have plenty of food for), but in a fish heavy metagame, it allows your sideboard to simply be byous instead of forests, and you can "sideboard" vs. fish without sideboarding. If fish isn't prevelant (or Jailer or w/e), it isn't neccessary, but it is an option, at least.
With the two remainding slots, I would run Lion's Eye Diamond, which, for 3 life, destroys your entire hand into dredge mode. It is essentially a bomb for activating the deck.
From there, you could run a "disrution" creature, ranging from Titan or Petradon vs Control to Chosen vs. combo.
Getting Bazaar wasted turn one does slow down your clock significantly. The reason you don't need Petrified Field though is because decks playing Wasteland are usually Fish, who can't race you even without bazaar online.
For dredge effects I am currently running 13. Lists that run 16+ are just wasting slots, all you need is 1 dredge guy to find others. As for disruption I am running 8 slots, currently Leyline and Chalice which I feel are best suited for the current meta.
Why rag on poor nether shadow he is damn reliable, In testing I always had just enough dredgers and started it off with shambling shell a lot so I think I'll be keeping it higher then 13 dredgers but what about replacing one with a phantasmagorian to dump my remaining hand on the second turn? The reason I kept unmask is in my environment Mox, Lotus, etc. is unheard of but I agree in competition that chalice/leyline is superior. Fireball do you run four cabal therapy? When testing my build I was able to reliably get two off on the second turn raping my opponents hand of threats. In my meta Force of Will, Mana Spike, and Daze are my main problems. I view the dredgers as my "mana base" for this deck considering they enable everything else. A sub-par mana base will cost you more games then the card advantage offered by running less lands can offset, so I think I'll stick to 15-16 dredgers.
In testing my deck I could take out two opponents on the second turn.
Yeah I run 4 Cabal Therapy, which I guess would actually make it 12 disruption slots. Therapy is just nuts, its disruption, it protects your combo and its cost is easy for Ichorid to fulfill. Nether Shadow is decent but the main issue I find is needing at least two turns to get it online. Ichorid can already be slow and Nether Shadow even more problems then Ichorid; namely its not as big and requires 3 creatures above it.
I've replaced a nether shadow with a shambling shell and beta-tested for a while to see how the deck plays. With average dredging that gives me a 84% chance of getting three dorks on the second turn, an 84% chance of getting a dredger in the opening hand and a 91% chance with the bazaar activated.
With a set-up with just 8 dorks and 15 dredgers you have a 58% chance of getting 3 "dorks" on the second turn, an 88% chance of getting a dredger in your first hand and a 94% chance with a bazaar activation.
To win on the second turn I need 3 "dorks" running eleven makes that a lot easier. You can insure that nether shadows will go off simply by dumping two dredgers and another creature from your hand (if you have to). So it is very reliable since it can be brought out on the second and third turn (If needed)
Following those numbers (provided by the deckulator) I have a little over 4/5 chance of getting a dredger in my opening hand while you have a little under a 9/10th chance. I have a little over a 4/5th chance to get three dorks on my second turn and you have a little under 3/5th chance.
Can you play a cabal therapy in your hand off the LED when you sack it? I seem to remember there being some debate on this.
Thanks for your help guys, this deck is easily the best I've ever built.
You play a card that allows you to draw a card or fetch a card , then crack it in response so you get mana and have whatever cards you drew/fetched to play with that mana.
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To be more specific:
Under normal circumstances, this would in fact be possible, but LED specifically states "only play as an instant". As such, this restriction means that, unlike normal mana abilities, you cannot pay for something already cast with LED, but must pay in advance for a card with a tutor or draw on the stack. It was intended to make LED sort of a joke johnny card, although we all know it turned out a good deal better than that ;).
To the topic on hand:
You do need 3 dorks, but they don't need to be narcs or shadows. For instance, if you have 3 bridges in your yard, you only need one narc and a therapy. Likewise, 2 bridges and 2 narcs and a therapy works, etc.
Furthermore, Shadow triggers at the beginning of your upkeep. This means that, when seeking the turn 2 win, shadow is only useful if discarded with your first bazaar activation, or off a street dredge. Taking this into account, even getting 1 shadow in your yard for a turn 2 win seems unlikely. You would much rather dump dredgers off that turn 1 bazaar, I am sure you would agree, as they facilitate the turn 2 win much better.
Your statistics don't take into acount the intracacies of Ichorid, as they are based on relativily simple computations compared to what is neccessary.
In the scenario you put out glix I would simply have a second turn flame-kin zealot or cephalid sage without any additional tokens. That doesn't appeal to me nor would it win me the game quickly. The number of games I've played thus far were a nether shadow didn't come out of the graveyard once put there is very small, like maybe 3, and in each case I had others that did come out and it was basically the last card discarded to the graveyard. I have had A LOT of good fortune with the card. Shadow is good even in your first hand (narc isn't) On average as long as six or more cards are above it shadow will be coming out. I am not going to stop running it because it's unreliable because it isn't. I will stop running it when I see that it doesn't help or I need something else more like more dredgers (if that remains a concern).
What are these calculations of which you speak Glix I'd like to know more about them. Thanks
Trying to find exact percentages of complex situations in Ichorid is going to be difficult if not impossible. The problem with Nether Shadow is that you have to wait until your next upkeep, which makes him near useless. What gets me fast wins playing Ichorid is Nacro, and if that doesn't work out I have more then enough Ichorids that are going to be triggering during my upkeep. Basically my point is Nether Shadow has merit, but I think it is overkill.
I can't decide exactly how many dredgers I want with this deck. Currently I'm running only 12, which might be a bit low. I don't like Shell because it barely even Dredges more then Bazaar, and the deck is already tight.
I have the same problem Fireballchannel, I would like to run 14 dredgers but when I beta-test with 2 shambling shell in the place of nether shadow or street wraith I find again and again that the card it replaced would have worked out better in the place of the shambling shell. When I don't get a dredger right away it usually sets me back to a 3rd-4th turn win. Otherwise the deck works like clockwork about 4/5th of the time getting a second turn win.
The problem as I see it is the perfect build for this deck involves 62 cards
14 dredgers, 12 disruption, and 12 "dorks" (sorry Glix but I like a lot of dorks). So I can run either an amount of disruption, dredgers, or dorks that I feel is inadequate.
What I could do is run 14 dredgers and 10 dorks that should give me an 86% chance of both having a dredger in my first hand and of having 3 "dorks" on my second turn. That would increase my chance of having a dredger in my first hand by 5% but running anymore would only increase it by 2%. I would take a 8% hit in the having 3 "dorks" on the third turn but that still puts me above a 4/5th chance and thats decent.
Nether Shadow states at the "end of your upkeep". I would think that means if I dump them during my upkeep I can still use them.
Wouldn't the exact same rule apply to Ichorid then. I seem to remember a ruling about how you can use bazaar to dredge in stuff during your upkeep to feed to an Ichorid thats already in your graveyard. Something like the trigger occurs regardless of whether or not it has something to remove from the game. If that works why couldn't I dredge in response to a Nether Shadoweffect triggering and dump stuff on top of it to meet it conditions.
I took this off another site that offers rulings...
Q: If Ichorid is in my graveyard at the beginning of my upkeep with no other creature, can I stack that ability and then use Bazaar of Baghdad to dig for a Black creature to remove from the game to the Ichorid ability?
A: Yes. Ichorid's ability will trigger at the beginning of your upkeep regardless of whether or not there are other Black creatures in your graveyard to remove. If you can find a way to get a Black creature into your graveyard before this triggered ability resolves, then you can remove it from the game in order to put Ichorid into play.
You can only return an Ichorid or Nether Shadow if it was already in your graveyard before the beginning of your upkeep. You can respond with Ichorid triggers with Bazaar, allowing you to find black creatures to feed Ichorid.
What about running three dryad arbor. I've seen some decks doing that to insure a second turn dork as well as make it easier to play emerald charm/reverant silence to deal with leyline of the void. Those decks usually sideboard the fourth dryad along with 2 darkblast sideboarded and mainboarded.
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4 x Bridge from Below
2 x Dread Return
1 x Flame Kin Zealot
1 x Cephalid Sage
over
2 x Dragon Breath
2 x Sutured Ghoul
2 x Dread Return
I have never failed to produce a turn 3 sutured ghoul for the win with my deck BUT if yours can reliably pull off a turn 2 win it is superior. I'm going to test a build more like what you are advocating. My suspicion is your deck trades dependability for speed but I want to find out for sure.
Street Wraith is like washing your car every week to increase your fuel efficiency. While theres no question stuck on dirt would make your vehicle heavier, the advantages offered by washing it weekly are far outweighed by the costs.
Either way, even with Ghoul win I would advise testing 1 or 2 sages. Sages are like a free bazaar activation, as long as you run eough dread returns to facilitate it.
I can gaurentee that, save for the mull to zero senario or particularly odd situations, Ichorid will destroy its entire deck by turn 3, and I'm sure the same is true regardless of the build atm, simply due to its incredible effeciency. To that end, I'm not sure there is a loss of dependability. Extirpate has largely proven itself worthless vs ichorid, and save the mirror, most decks do not run creatures that kill themselves, so bridge removal tends to not be a problem. However, that can easily change as well.
I'm just not a fan of any creature that requires useless cards to augment it, as I would prefer to run stuff that does stuff in other senarios in those slots.
As for Street Wraith, I think of them as serum powder 5-8, if they're in your oppening hand, they essentially give you a free mulligan, except they dredge instead of drawing, which increases the deck's initial output. When they aren't in your hand, they still serve function as a black creature for ichorid and 3/4 bodies for Ghoul, if you go that route. I'm just not sure what you would rather run in that slot that would be more effecient. The deck has an adequate number of dredgers, so unless you would rather run something like nethere spirit, which is going to be unneccessary most of the time, and just serve the same purpose as wratih in the yard, except they're smaller and don't do stuff if they're in your hand.
Street Wraith is like washing your car in gasoline and then lighting it, it's that explosive.
If Street Wraith was being run just for deck thinning purposes it would make some sense to cut him. But it does so much more, it feeds Ichorid and Ghoul, speeds up your clock, makes mulligan into Bazaar easier and makes you better vs. Waste on Bazaar. All Street Wraith costs you is 2 life, which barely ever matters in decks like Ichorid where you either win big or go home.
If you play a Bazaar and it gets Wastelanded on turn 1, then you're not winning in 2-3 turns; therefore, Petrified Field still "does" something.
However, you could be absolutely correct in stating that Field is no longer necessary; it will likely depend on how the format will handle Ichorid, and what tools Ichorid will need to lean on to survive or win. We had an initial report from Rich Shay and his performance in a small local event on TMD - it will be very interesting how Ichorid will perform in larger events, and how other decks will respond to the Ichorid threat. Should be exciting to see.
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Street Wraith
2 Flame Kin Zealot
2 Cephalid Sage
1 Phantasmagorian
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Unmask
3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
It runs a lot less disruption to add some speed. When testing I was producing a lot of turn two wins.
If the deck is focusing on speed, I see no reason to include Unmask. IMHO, it's terrible in a fast version of the deck.
-DShell
Other options for that slot
-Chalice of the Void
-Leyline of the Void
-Strip Mine + 3 other cards
That is incorrect, from my understanding. Ichorid, as of now, is completely capable of winning with only one bazaar activation, due to a variety of reasons, including sage and narcs.
Unmask is indeed not that great any more. Furthermore, you absolotuly require more disruption, and you have way too many dredgers and dorks. Honestly, you do not need shadows any more, the deck is faster, and narcs tend to provide all the food neccessary.
I would absolutely advise running both chalice and leyline. They serve the important service of disruption "normal" decks severly, granting you even that one turn neccessary to fend off control or combo. Take chalice, without it, you give control slaver the time to set up. With it, you take down their primary combatants of your deck (crypts) and similtaneously steal from them that speed from moxen they need to gain an edge. Leyline, in addition to instantly winning you the mirror, likewise hurts combo and combo/control's decks capacity to race you. Often, the yard is relied on as an imporant resource.
That being said, when have you ever found that shadow accelerates your kill? I find that, often, it doesn't, as you are looking to win by turn 2, and turn 3 if you have to, it will only be useful if it gets bazaared away with the first activation, and you want to devout that to dredgers and ichroids. Narc essentially replaced shadow as an essentially superior and faster dork.
Cut Unmask, as unmask is only good in your oppening hand with another black card that you don't need as a dredger, and the effect is generally not as swiningy as you want it to be. Very often, Chalice or Leyline are much less demanding and much faster.
I would then advise cutting 2 Shambling Shells. You could also consider replacing the two shells with darkblast, as often it serves the same function, save pitching to Ichorid (which I find you have plenty of food for), but in a fish heavy metagame, it allows your sideboard to simply be byous instead of forests, and you can "sideboard" vs. fish without sideboarding. If fish isn't prevelant (or Jailer or w/e), it isn't neccessary, but it is an option, at least.
With the two remainding slots, I would run Lion's Eye Diamond, which, for 3 life, destroys your entire hand into dredge mode. It is essentially a bomb for activating the deck.
From there, you could run a "disrution" creature, ranging from Titan or Petradon vs Control to Chosen vs. combo.
Just a few thoughts, lmk how they turn out.
For dredge effects I am currently running 13. Lists that run 16+ are just wasting slots, all you need is 1 dredge guy to find others. As for disruption I am running 8 slots, currently Leyline and Chalice which I feel are best suited for the current meta.
- 4 Unmask
- 4 Nether Shadow
+ 4 Leyline of the Void
+ 4 Chalice of the Void
Why rag on poor nether shadow he is damn reliable, In testing I always had just enough dredgers and started it off with shambling shell a lot so I think I'll be keeping it higher then 13 dredgers but what about replacing one with a phantasmagorian to dump my remaining hand on the second turn? The reason I kept unmask is in my environment Mox, Lotus, etc. is unheard of but I agree in competition that chalice/leyline is superior. Fireball do you run four cabal therapy? When testing my build I was able to reliably get two off on the second turn raping my opponents hand of threats. In my meta Force of Will, Mana Spike, and Daze are my main problems. I view the dredgers as my "mana base" for this deck considering they enable everything else. A sub-par mana base will cost you more games then the card advantage offered by running less lands can offset, so I think I'll stick to 15-16 dredgers.
In testing my deck I could take out two opponents on the second turn.
4 Ichorid
3 Nether Shadow
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
1 Shambling Shell
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Cephalid Sage
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Bridge from Below
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Serum Powder
After extensive beta-testing I've found it works pretty well. There were a few games were I had a hard time producing the necessary dredgers.
With a set-up with just 8 dorks and 15 dredgers you have a 58% chance of getting 3 "dorks" on the second turn, an 88% chance of getting a dredger in your first hand and a 94% chance with a bazaar activation.
To win on the second turn I need 3 "dorks" running eleven makes that a lot easier. You can insure that nether shadows will go off simply by dumping two dredgers and another creature from your hand (if you have to). So it is very reliable since it can be brought out on the second and third turn (If needed)
Following those numbers (provided by the deckulator) I have a little over 4/5 chance of getting a dredger in my opening hand while you have a little under a 9/10th chance. I have a little over a 4/5th chance to get three dorks on my second turn and you have a little under 3/5th chance.
Can you play a cabal therapy in your hand off the LED when you sack it? I seem to remember there being some debate on this.
Thanks for your help guys, this deck is easily the best I've ever built.
Under normal circumstances, this would in fact be possible, but LED specifically states "only play as an instant". As such, this restriction means that, unlike normal mana abilities, you cannot pay for something already cast with LED, but must pay in advance for a card with a tutor or draw on the stack. It was intended to make LED sort of a joke johnny card, although we all know it turned out a good deal better than that ;).
To the topic on hand:
You do need 3 dorks, but they don't need to be narcs or shadows. For instance, if you have 3 bridges in your yard, you only need one narc and a therapy. Likewise, 2 bridges and 2 narcs and a therapy works, etc.
Furthermore, Shadow triggers at the beginning of your upkeep. This means that, when seeking the turn 2 win, shadow is only useful if discarded with your first bazaar activation, or off a street dredge. Taking this into account, even getting 1 shadow in your yard for a turn 2 win seems unlikely. You would much rather dump dredgers off that turn 1 bazaar, I am sure you would agree, as they facilitate the turn 2 win much better.
Your statistics don't take into acount the intracacies of Ichorid, as they are based on relativily simple computations compared to what is neccessary.
In the scenario you put out glix I would simply have a second turn flame-kin zealot or cephalid sage without any additional tokens. That doesn't appeal to me nor would it win me the game quickly. The number of games I've played thus far were a nether shadow didn't come out of the graveyard once put there is very small, like maybe 3, and in each case I had others that did come out and it was basically the last card discarded to the graveyard. I have had A LOT of good fortune with the card. Shadow is good even in your first hand (narc isn't) On average as long as six or more cards are above it shadow will be coming out. I am not going to stop running it because it's unreliable because it isn't. I will stop running it when I see that it doesn't help or I need something else more like more dredgers (if that remains a concern).
What are these calculations of which you speak Glix I'd like to know more about them. Thanks
I can't decide exactly how many dredgers I want with this deck. Currently I'm running only 12, which might be a bit low. I don't like Shell because it barely even Dredges more then Bazaar, and the deck is already tight.
The problem as I see it is the perfect build for this deck involves 62 cards
14 dredgers, 12 disruption, and 12 "dorks" (sorry Glix but I like a lot of dorks). So I can run either an amount of disruption, dredgers, or dorks that I feel is inadequate.
What I could do is run 14 dredgers and 10 dorks that should give me an 86% chance of both having a dredger in my first hand and of having 3 "dorks" on my second turn. That would increase my chance of having a dredger in my first hand by 5% but running anymore would only increase it by 2%. I would take a 8% hit in the having 3 "dorks" on the third turn but that still puts me above a 4/5th chance and thats decent.
Nether Shadow states at the "end of your upkeep". I would think that means if I dump them during my upkeep I can still use them.
Oracle from Wizards' Gatherer:
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Nether Shadow is in your graveyard with three creature cards above it, you may put Nether Shadow into play.
So no, that doesn't work. Thats what makes it only good turn 3.
I took this off another site that offers rulings...
Q: If Ichorid is in my graveyard at the beginning of my upkeep with no other creature, can I stack that ability and then use Bazaar of Baghdad to dig for a Black creature to remove from the game to the Ichorid ability?
A: Yes. Ichorid's ability will trigger at the beginning of your upkeep regardless of whether or not there are other Black creatures in your graveyard to remove. If you can find a way to get a Black creature into your graveyard before this triggered ability resolves, then you can remove it from the game in order to put Ichorid into play.