The first two installments in the series saw Josh tackle some of the best Aggro decks that Extended has to offer – today’s final furlong brings us the popular Trinket Angel concoction and the now-perennial Ichorid “combo” dredge deck. The PTQ season is well underway, and it’s plain to see that there are countless viable decks in the current metagame. Be prepared!
Welcome to the final Extended Aggro overview installment. I hope everybody had a good holiday season, and good luck to those with early PTQs! Today we’ll be finishing up our look at aggro by going over Trinket Angel and Ichorid.
Trinket Angel
Creatures (14)
Lands (23)
Spells (23)
The metagame breaker, world-beater, and all round good-looking deck from Worlds. Essentially an update of older U/W Solution decks; it gain a mini-lock with Counterbalance plus Sensei’s Divining Top, as well as burn with Fire / Ice and Lightning Helix. It keeps a small toolbox like the last few seasons, only with Trinket Mage over the rotated Enlightened Tutor.
Trinket Angel is a very strong metagame deck, since the early favorites for most popular are Boros Deck Wins, Ritual Desire, Goblins, and Trinket Angel itself. With so many effective answers in a compact package, it’s easy to see why the deck jumped from cute metagame deck to a major player.
Unfortunately, the deck has a set of flaws that make it stand out in the field. The first and most obvious issue being that the deck is criminally underpowered in a field that includes combo decks that can win on turn 4, and aggro that can consistently win on turn 5 through blockers. This means certain games, in which it looks like the game is totally locked up, are still losable from players building up resources and waiting for an opening. Games against Desire are great examples: seemingly dominant positions involving Meddling Mage and other combo hate get blown out by a later Desire, or Burning Wish into Sins of the Past into a hard-cast Tendrils of Agony.
The second major flaw is the bouts of inconsistency the deck can go through when hitting the mid- and late-game. The deck does have limited search and cantrips, but has very little real card manipulation capabilities. The more games you play with the deck, you begin to take note of all the games dropped due to late-game stretches of useless cards. When you really want to seal the game while hitting with your four- or five-turn clock, the deck basically just scoffs at you and says, “deal with it,” because you can’t go more than a few cards down at once…
Finally, my last issue with the deck is the lack of “density” the deck has. A problem with all-solution type decks, it’s especially apparent with so much burn and other creature removal floating around. Against decks like Flow Aggro, Scepter-Chant, and BDW, it’s not improbable that you run out of threats before fully getting the gameplan established. Decks like U/W Tron and Desire can also take advantage of the lack of clock by abusing the one or two creatures actually in play and simply trumping the deck shortly down the line.
Despite these flaws, the deck is still quite strong, although I think a few changes are in order from the Worlds list. My first issue is with Exalted Angel, a six-mana creature makes little sense where the average cost per card is around 2.2. You don’t have anyway to protect it as a morph, which means that ability will be used quite sparingly. Lightning Angel not only comes down quicker, but it’s a far more aggressive creature that can be vital in racing situations.
Umezawa’s Jitte is second only to Counterbalance in beating opposing aggro decks, yet the deck only has two in maindeck. This strikes me as odd, since it wouldn’t be difficult to cut a single burn spell or Stifle while gaining a much more vital card in about half of your matches.
As I mentioned with density, added creatures – such as Jotun Grunt – might be able to help fix that issue. Not only does he survive in combat longer than nearly any creature in the deck, but he gives the deck another creature that can put immediate pressure on the opponent. If not Grunt, a combat-relevant creature such as Galina’s Knight or Goblin Legionnaire seems in order.
Matches
Aggro: Boros fluctuates a lot. For a lot of people, they’ve played 20 games, went like 13-7 or 14-6, and called it a day; at least from reports I’ve heard. As I said in the BDW match break-down, if Trinket Angel has its Jitte or Counterbalance, GG. Especially if Pyrite Spellbomb is in the Boros build to wipe out the most annoying blocker in Silver Knight. If the deck needs to play fairly, it’s very possible for the deck to get overwhelmed before it can build up the critical card advantage needed to win. Personally I think Trinket Angel has the advantage, but it’s not as favorable as people make it seem.
I haven’t had gotten to test against Flow Aggro, so I’ll leave that up to your imagination, though at first glance it’s close enough to BDW that it’d test well enough. On the downside, elephant tokens basically can smash through all of your defenses.
Aggro Loam isn’t fun, because big creatures trump your guys and Counterbalance may or may not do a significant amount of damage depending on the exact draw. Not to mention the bomb of Devastating Dreams, which if resolved basically wipes Trinket Angel off the map.
Control: The match against Scepter-Chant is actually quite interesting. It’s like your playing a better, faster version of the deck against them. The lock you have if more effective in the match, not to mention you have many more threats on the whole. Post-board you may or may not have more Pithing Needles to kick them in the balls with, not to mention Dwarven Blastminer. .
U/W Tron is a pain in the butt for this deck. It has all the time in the world to build up its mana reserves and then start dropping bombs on you. Wrath with counter back-up, huge Decrees, and even the occasional Mindslaver or Meloku can come down and ruin your day. This is probably one of Trinket Angel’s worst matches because so much of the deck is irrelevant in the face of Tron.
Combo: The second main reason you’ll be playing this deck. Desire gets smashed by this deck. Stifle, Meddling Mage, and Counterbalance all make the combo players life miserable. Post-board if you wanted to increase the chances of victory, additional stuff like True Believer or Orim’s Chant could be brought in to make Desire even work to win the games it randomly goes broken. Yes, you can still drop a game to the deck, even with all these anti-cards, purely because Desire is so powerful. However, the odds that you’ll drop two out of three are drastically in your favor.
And that concludes the testing I’ve done with Trinket Angel. We’ll now move onto everyone’s favorite deck; Ichorid.
The best deck from last season (and the new Affinity) returns for a second go-around. Of course, many people assumed the deck would simply be killed off by faster combo and the reprint of Tormod’s Crypt. As you all know, hate is pretty powerless when nobody actually runs it in their decks.
Do we have another Affinity situation, where an incredibly powerful deck with a ton of good matches across the board becomes a great choice again because everyone thinks it’ll go away? Maybe…
Unfortunately for us, Worlds proved to everyone that the deck was still alive and kicking, posting two near identical decks in the high ranks. Here’s Ryo Ogura’s 6-0 listing.
Creatures (25)
- 4 Psychatog
- 2 Wild Mongrel
- 2 Wonder
- 4 Putrid Imp
- 4 Ichorid
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 1 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
Lands (18)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
The base of the Ichorid deck has stayed largely the same from deck to deck, regardless of the season the deck was played in. Let’s take a moment and actually break the deck down to its most important parts…
Cards in just about every Ichorid deck:
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
3-4 Psychatog
1-2 Wonder
18-24 mana sources (3-4 Chrome Mox and Cephalid Coliseum being notables)
So two-thirds of the deck is essentially built for us. Everyone runs these cards as four-ofs, and they serve to fill the most valuable roles in the deck. After this basic forty, we have a few more “must fill” roles in which many Ichorid decks run identical cards.
Basic Card Drawing: Usually filled by Deep Analysis and Tolarian Winds. DA is kind of obvious when you consider you could have half of your deck in the graveyard at a given moment. Tolarian Winds is the preferred “combo” finisher of choice when using Psychatog and Ichorid. However, Ogura chose to only run one Winds, and added a Careful Study. Although Study lacks the sheer power of Winds, it has the bonuses of only costing one mana and being good as a turn 1 discard outlet for the deck in the same vein as Putrid Imp.
Back-Up Win: This role is almost universally filled by Zombie Infestation, to help the dredge engine and make a horde of 2/2 guys against Aggro, while avoiding use of the graveyard. Other cards that people sometimes run to act as a secondary win condition are Wild Mongrel, which acts like Psychatog – huge threats that double as discard outlets. The more intricate of the huge threat category is the Dread Return combo (which we’ll get into below) to help destroy Aggro and combo.
Additional Dredgers: Many of the Ichorid decks also run additional Dredge cards in addition to Troll and Imp; the favorite being Golgari Thug. A few other builds have also used Grave-Shell Scarab or Darkblast to help the Dredge engine out while being useful on their own if needed. Another choice that would mainly see play in the Dread Return builds would be Gigapede – the ability for it to continually discard Troll, and its additional power when eaten by Sutured Ghoul, is valuable.
The Dread Return plan: For those who don’t know, here’s a brief explanation of the plan and its benefits. Ichorid is in a unique position since it can easily dump a huge amount of its library into the graveyard while utilizing cheap / free creatures. Hence the combo is to utilize Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul and Dragon Breath for a one-shot kill while not taking away from the original Ichorid plan.
The minimal combo pieces are:
2 Dread Return
1-2 Sutured Ghoul
1-2 Dragon Breath
1-2 Krosan Cloudscraper (or similarly huge creature)
Utilizing the bare minimum, it takes up about six slots in the Ichorid deck in exchange for the ability to bring back a hasted ten-to-thirty power man into play at no mana cost. Of course you could choose to make it a true plan B of your deck and run many more support cards for the deck. Cards like Acorn Harvest; Yosei, the Morning Star; (Swinging for six and then Time Walk with recurring creatures beats most decks, and without as much risk); plus other utility creatures and additional dredgers will make the combo far more consistent and effective, but at the cost of other accepted cards in your deck.
Still, it’s something to consider if you believe racing decks like Dragonstorm, Ritual Desire, and Sunrise is a more effective plan than using Cabal Therapy (and whatever board cards you have) to stall them out.
Common Sideboard cards: Firemane Angel and Moment’s Peace are still the best options available to stomp on opposing Aggro (The best of the graveyard strategy options, at least). Time Spiral has also brought Ancient Grudge to go along with Ray of Revelation, to help beat whatever annoying artifacts are around. Who knows what artifacts you may want to kill… Of course, Pithing Needle is still a great board option to stop Crypt, Withered Wretch, and Sensei’s Divining Top. And of course Darkblast / Filth will be seen in the boards to smash Black decks into nothingness.
The Dread Return plan in its compact form could potentially be a board plan on its own to deal with combo. Additional ways to speed up your goldfish against combo tends to be a good thing when you consistently get outraced. On the other hand, the simple addition of Duress, Chalice of the Void, or Leyline of the Void could be enough, depending on what combo ends up the most popular.
Matches
Here’s the thing when I’m talking about matches: I’m assuming some amount of Crypts in the sideboards of the opposing decks that actually want them. Considering the number of Boros, Rock, and other aggro not running them, you could really luck out at an actual PTQ.
Aggro: Oh boy, a possible 55/45 BDW match! Welcome to the rest of the field. Pre-board you have a slight advantage, due to Zombie Infestation – the ability to create a bunch of flying 2/2s for free is pretty good against opposing bears. The obvious downside in the match is that all of BDW’s men are going to usually take out two of yours unless they’ve got Darkblast.
Post-board you get life-gain and Moment’s Peace to stall any possible alpha strikes. If they have Tormod’s Crypt, the match stays roughly the same, since they can effectively disable about half of your deck at will. In addition it makes the flying Zombie and Tog plan non-existent, which means you actually have to fight for each inch on the ground.
Ultimately BDW decks have become something far more streamlined and deadly than their brothers from seasons past, hence the match isn’t as solid as it used to be. Psychatog and Wild Mongrel don’t automatically trump anything due to Sudden Shock and Silver Knight, and Legionnaire and Lava Dart are much better at dealing with Zombies and Ichorid.
As for other aggro like Trinket Angel and Flow Aggro, both suffer from being too focused on smashing the rest of the metagame. All of the men, save Angels, die to Ichorid, Mongrel, and Psychatog. They simply can out-smash and outlast any men on the board, or simply avoid them via Wonder. Counterbalance and Stifle aren’t much of a help, so ultimately the only real way they have to win is to tutor for Tormod’s Crypt. Flow Aggro simply doesn’t have the power required to beat Ichorid until the Tormod’s Crypt come in from the board.
Control: U/W Tron = Bye. Wrath of God doesn’t hurt very much, Decree of Justice can’t stall, Repeal sucks, and Renewed Faith can’t even stall that much. The only way they can win is via Mindslaver.
Scepter-Chant puts up more of a fight, but there’s a really a limited amount the deck can do to Ichorid. Obviously in some games, Scepter will hit early and that’s that. In the games where they actually have to play, there have major issues dealing with resolved Mongrel / Tog or Infestation. This means they mainly have to spread out and conserve how much removal they end up using. Spell Snare and Force Spike shine in this match, but eventually they have to try to win the game quicker than the enemy gets two Ichorid in the yard.
Post-board, things look better and worse for Scepter. On one hand you gain an alternate win condition in Exalted Angel (If you run them) and graveyard hate. On the other hand, it means you now have to stop Ancient Grudge, which is incredibly difficult in a deck that can mill off so many cards. Scepter does gain a slight advantage because it’s boarding out slow removal, garbage counters (if any non-effective ones like Stifle are being run), and some amount of search / draw, for more cards that do things. However, the match is “meh” for Scepter overall unless, it’s an odd build.
Combo: I’ve only had a chance to test the deck against Desire, so my results are purely against that deck. Simply put, Ichorid is going to lose nearly every game it can’t win on turn 4 or 5. Cabal Therapy hurts, but regardless of the exact deck configuration, Infernal Tutor or Top will allow the deck to circumvent a lot of discard issues. The sheer stupidity of Mind’s Desire allows for a lot of wins from seemingly impossible-to-come-back from scenarios.
On the other hand, Ichorid with four Tolarian Winds can put significant damage out on turn four, and win the game with a series of decent dredges. If it’s running the Dread Return plan, then you can go better than 60/40ish, because you had another way to just win before turn 5.
That concludes the strategy part of the article and the overviews. I hope you learned something, and best of luck!
Random Bonus:
If you like good techno at all, you’ll love the new Teranoid album, it’s an amazing album full of win and happiness for all. ‘Teranoid Overground Edition Koja Yukino’ is the name. Go order it from play-asia now.
Other than that, for the holidays I’m listening to the other Teranoid album and Enigmatic 2 from Lia, which are basically remixes of all her slower songs into fast dance / techno pieces. Not as good as the first album, but still solid. Also Dancemania Speed – The Best of Hardcore has served me well, just because fast stuff is enjoyable while driving across I-5.
How sad is it that Dallas actually lost to Detroit in their final game? Talk about backing into the playoffs. They’ll be lucky to win another game the way they’ve been playing. I guess Tony Romo was the clear choice for the Pro Bowl, neh? In fact, Chicago choked so badly against Green Bay that the Saints and Eagles actually have to be the favorites in the NFC right now. How sad is that?
If San Diego manages to lose the AFC crown, it means one of two things:
Martyball screwed the Chargers in playoff time yet again.
Phillip Rivers had a complete collapse and LT gets hurt.
Let’s face it, LT has to get hurt as well, because he can come in and play QB better than half the starters in the league right now. He merely has to chuck it up to Gates or Vincent Jackson every play he’s not going Vick on us.
The Wii is amazing. Go buy one. I haven’t had as much fun with a new system in a long time. N is on a roll – first the DS and now this. By the way, how many knew that the DS was outselling everything in Japan – still – and putting up Top 2 numbers here for the last year or so?
Finally, a quick reminder: always bring your car with you to all parties ever. Man, does it suck having to drive everyone home in your friend’s car.
Joshua Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom