R.I.P. Ichorid / Dredge

Ichorid or Dreadge is a powerful agro-combo deck that uses the power of dredge to fill its grave. narcomöba and ichorid serve as free creatures to fule the flashback costs of dread retuns and cabal theraphie. bridge from below turns those flashback costs into a swarm of zombie tokens that swing for 3 with haste thanks to the reanimated flame-kin zealot.

this deck sees play in vintage, legacy and to some degree extendet. every format where you have access to dredge there is a deck that abuses it.

there is one thing this deck does not like at all hower: Gravejard Hate.

cards like ley line of the viod, tomond's crypt, relic of progenitus, jinx jailer etc. are all very problematic (more or less the only thing that prevents ichorid from alost always winning is grave hate). this deck is one of the reasons almost all decks need to run garavehate in the side board.

all this gravehate presents problems to ichorid but non that cant be solved. chalice 0 stops crypt, pithing needle relic, emerald charm or chain of vapor ley line, chain of vapor or contaigen jailer and so fourth.

and along comes zendikar. a printing of a new gravehate is no big suprise. the fact that everyone can use it not realy either. the fact that its got a cc of 4 is instant and can be played for 0 however is horrible news for ichorid. its much harder to anti-hate than anything befor. now ichorid cant dare to dredge befor it can cast a cabal therapy naming ravenous trap. if you then see a counter you might be in trouble ^^. extendet does not have access to theraphie so if this hate is being played a lot the deck will fail ... utterly ...

as for legacy and vintage things just got a lot worse ... playing ichorid has allways been win game one try to beat gravehate game 2 and 3. beating the new hate now is just a lot harder and it slows your post board game down even more ... i cant tell how bad it will be since with theraphie you are not compleatly defensless but it might just spell the end of ichorid being competetiv.

ohh yeah unmask will return to almost all builds i guess. the problem is not the card itselve its the fact that you need to adress it in your board or main seperatly from other gravehate. 15 cards anti-hate was already allmost too little ^^ chalice, chain, emerald charm, contaigen, needle, ancient grudge, rey of revalation, unmask, theraphie (with a way to cast it from hand in vintage) some of this will need to be main. therapy already is but quite likely more will have to follow ... most likely unmask because it can hit the ramdom semi-hate the deck does not like such as trinispheer, spheer of resistance, gaddogg teeg etc. all in all it will be more dificult playing ichorid than it has been befor because the new hate cant be addressed by the old anti hate. if only they were to ban tarmogoyf in legacy ... grow would not be tier 1 any more goblins would reamerge as would rifts sligh and others. also without the goyf you'd only need gravehate for the odd combodeck that uses its grave (ichorid, breakfest, reanimator) resulting in much less gravehate overall.

banning tarmogoyf would make legacy a lot more fun !!!