[Primer/Deck] Belcher

[Shuvel]

Feline,

Are you going to be playing Belcher at any future Opens? It would be awesome to see you piloting it and any sweet tech you are thinking about using.

[JPoJohnson]

I have completed a 2nd deck, I now own Belcher, again. (Used to have it about a year and a half ago.)

In what type of situation would you feel that Belcher would be the deck to run over your High Tide deck? I don't see any SCG Open having a lack of blue decks anytime in the near future so it would be interesting to know if there is some other reason (:

[Blastoderm]

In what type of situation would you feel that Belcher would be the deck to run over your High Tide deck? I don't see any SCG Open having a lack of blue decks anytime in the near future so it would be interesting to know if there is some other reason (:

I use belcher in my local meta (80% blue). They can't always have force of will...

Sideboard I have 4 carpet of flowers, 4 xantid swarm. Both have helped me push through all sorts of counters. Burning wish is a must in the deck to increase consistency of opening hands as well as to get infernal tutor. I win 30-40% of my games grabbing infernal tutor for belcher late game when my opponent thinks he has it in the bag. This is why carpet of flowers is so strong!

[kavaki]

So where does Tendrils exactly come into play with Belcher? There are obviously scenarios that im not thinking of.

[WarpWorld]

So where does Tendrils exactly come into play with Belcher? There are obviously scenarios that im not thinking of.

Sometimes you can kill with it when you go off with LED and BW because you can chain manamorphos and Gitaxian probes to get a large enough storm count.

[warfordium]

I just spent $140 on the pieces of the deck and have goldfished it a fair bit. if you chain probes and /or manamorphoses it's possible to hit 10 storm. if you do, you might as well break LED for BBB and just kill them. you could also spin the wheel with Dim Ret if you know goblins won't be fast enough (elves on the draw?)

[WarpWorld]

I just spent $140 on the pieces of the deck and have goldfished it a fair bit. if you chain probes and /or manamorphoses it's possible to hit 10 storm. if you do, you might as well break LED for BBB and just kill them. you could also spin the wheel with Dim Ret if you know goblins won't be fast enough (elves on the draw?)

And other combo decks like ANT/TES where they can kill you before goblins can finish them off. I am a fan of a large wish board. I have been playing the deck since Time Spiral and have used every card in the board. For reference this is my board at the moment

3 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Forest
1 Empty the Warren
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Hull Breach
1 Reverent Silence
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Reforge the Soul

[cab0747]

It looks like a very budget friendly Belcher list too 6th at the most recent SCG Open. No LEDs anywhere in the list. I was under the impression that this deck did not function nearly as well without the LEDs. Has anyone had repeated success without them? Also, it seemed like another Belcher player they had on camera wasn't running them either. I think it was Zakk Meza. During his 3 games on camera, I didn't see a single LED.

The list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=69138

[gregtron]

It looks like a very budget friendly Belcher list too 6th at the most recent SCG Open. No LEDs anywhere in the list. I was under the impression that this deck did not function nearly as well without the LEDs. Has anyone had repeated success without them? Also, it seemed like another Belcher player they had on camera wasn't running them either. I think it was Zakk Meza. During his 3 games on camera, I didn't see a single LED.

The list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=69138

Zakk Meza was the guy's name, but I'm not sure if we're spelling it correctly. I cracked up when he managed to kill Joel with that baby ETW, then put on his aviators while Joel shuffled three Forces back into his deck. I don't think either of the guys they showed on coverage were running LED, but even a suboptimal version of Belcher should perform pretty well in a room full of Burn and Elves players.

[HatterofMad]

I do love seeing Belcher doing well, gives me hope for the Open next month in KC. Sad to see it lose to Elves in the elimination rounds though, wish we could have seen that match. Not sure what to think about no LEDs in the deck, on one hand I am happy since I don't own them and have to borrow them, but it does seem to be weaker with out them, makes some of the wish cards much harder to cast, say Returns or Tendrils.

What do people think about Sonny only running the 1 Chrome Mox, in favor of 3 Pyretic Ritual? Another 2 mana ritual is nice but it seems that the mox might be better if you can't go off in one turn or for those extra land grants?

[Stomping Grounds G&H]

What is the reasoning behind sideboarding a Forest?

[Jon]

What is the reasoning behind sideboarding a Forest?

Having a non Wasteland-able source of mana in the game where it is required.

[haganbmj]

Having a non Wasteland-able source of mana in the game where it is required.

(Meaning that it makes it easier to run out cards like Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm against potential wasteland decks)

[JPoJohnson]

(Meaning that it makes it easier to run out cards like Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm against potential wasteland decks)

(And not a mountain so that you can tutor for it)

[cab0747]

Well, since it appears that burn is HUGE on MODO now (3/4 matches I played last night were against burn), I have decided switch over from Painter to Belcher for a little.

So... Greeting friends! Anything I should know that isn't listed in this thread?

Thanks!

[JPoJohnson]

Well, since it appears that burn is HUGE on MODO now (3/4 matches I played last night were against burn), I have decided switch over from Painter to Belcher for a little.

So... Greeting friends! Anything I should know that isn't listed in this thread?

Thanks!

Always play fearless G1 of every round.

[Trall]

For those who haven't read it : My study about Belcher (http://trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Always usefull to have maths behind our arguments :)

[cab0747]

For those who haven't read it : My study about Belcher (http://trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Always usefull to have maths behind our arguments :)

Holy hell.... That is fantastic! Thanks for all those "maffs"! My list is nearly identical to List 6 you have in your research (mine is +1 Pyretic Ritual, -1 ETW) but I would test the adjustments.

Also, this confirmed my suspicion that Chrome Mox isn't the greatest thing in the world. I am Running 2 right now and after goldfishing, I wouldn't ever run any more than just the 2. It is a PAIN to see them in multiples. However, I am new to this deck.

Another thing: if you have a burning wish and you crack the LED in response, when would you EVER get Diminishing Returns over an ETW? Maybe if it isn't T1-3 and your opponent has a significant board presence and you need the Belcher kill? That is the only situation I can think of.

Just a few questions about mulligans (this would be nearly impossible for a program to decide):
- If you can go off and you ONLY need a business spell, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- If you have rituals **EDIT** and a business spell, but no way to kick off the chain of rituals, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- What do you mull to before you just STOP? Of course, we can exclude hands that are 3 LED, 2 ETW. These are impossible to keep and almost any 4 cards you get would be better.

[HatterofMad]

Another thing: if you have a burning wish and you crack the LED in response, when would you EVER get Diminishing Returns over an ETW? Maybe if it isn't T1-3 and your opponent has a significant board presence and you need the Belcher kill? That is the only situation I can think of.

I have grabbed Diminishing Returns when I have used the Spirit guides to build up mana for the wish, since they don't up the storm count...it is a nice way to refill the hand if you need to, and with running 4 Wish, 3 ETW in the main it is a fairly decent chance you will hit one with a new draw of 7. I guess it is just a back up kinda card.

[GoblinZ]

Nice work! Really useful...

I have another question: your conclusion tends to say that 4 seething song is the right number and I saw most lists run 4 copies of it, but it seems seething song is the most difficult to cast in this deck and is more vulnerable to soft counters. I feel annoying when I have multiple seething songs in my open hand, so I always doubt that 4 is the right number.

[WarpWorld]

Holy hell.... That is fantastic! Thanks for all those "maffs"! My list is nearly identical to List 6 you have in your research (mine is +1 Pyretic Ritual, -1 ETW) but I would test the adjustments.

Also, this confirmed my suspicion that Chrome Mox isn't the greatest thing in the world. I am Running 2 right now and after goldfishing, I wouldn't ever run any more than just the 2. It is a PAIN to see them in multiples. However, I am new to this deck.

Another thing: if you have a burning wish and you crack the LED in response, when would you EVER get Diminishing Returns over an ETW? Maybe if it isn't T1-3 and your opponent has a significant board presence and you need the Belcher kill? That is the only situation I can think of.

Just a few questions about mulligans (this would be nearly impossible for a program to decide):
- If you can go off and you ONLY need a business spell, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- If you have rituals **EDIT** and a business spell, but no way to kick off the chain of rituals, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- What do you mull to before you just STOP? Of course, we can exclude hands that are 3 LED, 2 ETW. These are impossible to keep and almost any 4 cards you would be better.

As far as D.Return any time either A) stron count isn't high enough or B) you can't are with goblins ie. other combo matchups.

As far as mulligans...
- If you can go off and you ONLY need a business spell, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
Yes always go to six. You really only wanna keep hands that do something on turn 1.
- If you have rituals **EDIT** and a business spell, but no way to kick off the chain of rituals, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
Depends on the game number an the match up but more often than not I would mull.
- What do you mull to before you just STOP? Of course, we can exclude hands that are 3 LED, 2 ETW. These are impossible to keep and almost any 4 cards you would be better.
I will generally go to 4 and stop there. It is possible to win from 4 and 5 card hands

[GoblinZ]

Another thing: if you have a burning wish and you crack the LED in response, when would you EVER get Diminishing Returns over an ETW? Maybe if it isn't T1-3 and your opponent has a significant board presence and you need the Belcher kill? That is the only situation I can think of.


And if they have -1/-1 effect in hand.

[Tokugawa]

For those who haven't read it : My study about Belcher (http://trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Always usefull to have maths behind our arguments :)

Nice analysis! I would test the +1 ritual -1 ETW adjustment.

[Trall]

Just a few questions about mulligans (this would be nearly impossible for a program to decide):
- If you can go off and you ONLY need a business spell, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- If you have rituals **EDIT** and a business spell, but no way to kick off the chain of rituals, do you mull a 7 card hand? What about a 6 card hand?
- What do you mull to before you just STOP? Of course, we can exclude hands that are 3 LED, 2 ETW. These are impossible to keep and almost any 4 cards you get would be better.

1°)

If you have 7 cards an NO BP -> Mull. The probability to draw a BP in one draw is 10/52 = not worth trying (assuming you play 10 and you have 7 cards hand)
Same for 6

This statement is true for the very first game. If you exepct long grindy game with discard against you, keeping wihtout BP is "ok" (for example you have LAND Grant or permanent mana sources (taiga / carpet...)

2°)

If you miss one ritual or one IMS (initial mana source) don't mull. The % of drawing one is VERY HIGH
The same is true for 6 cards hand

3°)

Never ever go to 3 or less. 4 is critical tho. I tend to stop @ 5, event if I don't have stuff to do. (At the exeption of 3 LED 2 ETW :D )



I have another question: your conclusion tends to say that 4 seething song is the right number and I saw most lists run 4 copies of it, but it seems seething song is the most difficult to cast in this deck and is more vulnerable to soft counters. I feel annoying when I have multiple seething songs in my open hand, so I always doubt that 4 is the right number.

SS is +2 mana... That's really worth.
Don't forget on game 1, people don't really play soft counter (may be daze). Game 2 & 3, you should borard em out for blue hate if, of course they play blue !

[HatterofMad]

So glad I finally made the move over to The Source, reading through the primer and what everyone has said in the thread has me already feeling more confidant for the Open in Kansas City next month. Thanks for all your hard work people.

[TerribleTim68]

So my biggest issues is, I love Recross The Paths, but I suck at making piles. I mean, I really suck at it! Is there a list of solid piles somewhere?

[Infinitium]

Act on Impulse 2R

Sorcery

Exile the top three cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may play cards exiled this way.


This is a credible substitute for Meditate/Ideas Unbound in Recross lists. Costs another mana to go off compared to Ideas and is worse in a vaccuum than Meditate, but is nowhere near as awkward to cast should one draw into it naturally and it's a better Imprint for Chrome Mox should one need the IMS.

(In case you are wondering: the winning pile is AoI -> |LED, LED, Gitaxian Probe -> Chain of Probes/Manamorphose -> Burning Wish -> (Tendrils of Agony)|).


Void Snare U

Sorcery

Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.

Nice catch-all sideboard slot for BW.


So my biggest issues is, I love Recross The Paths, but I suck at making piles. I mean, I really suck at it! Is there a list of solid piles somewhere?

There aren't that many to keep track of tbh. For draw-3's, you basically only have to memorize the above Tendrils Pile, piles where you harddraw into anti-hate followed by the Tendrils pile, and postside the |LED, LED, Probe -> BW -> (Infernal Contract) -> LED, LED, Wraith, Probe -> Void Snare, BW -> (Tendrils of Agony)| pile that wins immediatly through various forms of anti-tendrils cards.

Meditate gives you a little more leeway in that you get extra cards/mana to play around with, meaning you can substitute Void Snare with BW -> Anti-Hate in the above pile game 1 (as long as you have an extra mana), or go for |LED, LED, LED, Street Wraith -> Belcher| and win through Ethersworn Canonist as a few examples.

[JPoJohnson]

So my biggest issues is, I love Recross The Paths, but I suck at making piles. I mean, I really suck at it! Is there a list of solid piles somewhere?

This article about Oops-All-Spells talks about the Recross the Paths belcher decklist and a little bit about functionality and piles. Not massively in depth, but there is some info including the top-32 decklist from an SCG Open.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25582_Unveiling-Oops-All-Spells.html

[P-E]

Or you have this one http://legitmtg.com/competitive/stacks-on-stacks-on-stacks/

[Infinitium]

Goldfishing with Act of impulse, some initial non-obvious observations:

-One can use LED mana to cast whatever spells dug up by it, meaning one doesn't have to crack existing LEDs in response should one attempt to dig for win conditions using it. It also means one can use any LED found in casting potential win conditions.

-Casting it blindly is better the more permanent mana sources one plays, as does Recross the Paths itself. Whilst attempting this is still a rather desperate move, 4 Chrome Moxes might be ideal in decks using it.

-If one ends up with it in hand and only one available mana post-Recrossing with a Rite of Flame in the GY it can still be cast the next turn by placing another Rite of Flame on top of the library (whereas Meditate/Ideas Unbound would be one mana short for Manamorphose).

EDIT:

-Cannot cast Street Wraith or Spirit Guides. Bummer.

I think like it better than the alternatives, if only because it's aesthetically pleasing to have the MD being castable by RG mana.

[JPoJohnson]

In what situation would you ever play Recross the Paths Belcher over traditional? It just seems more fragile overall for the most part.

[Infinitium]

It is less stable overall, but I consider the tradeoff worth it in any matchup where a bunch of Goblins aren't guaranteed to get there by turn 3 (meaning most of them postside). Being more fun to play than traditional Belcher helps as well.

[paeng4983]

I participated in a 4rounder legacy here
My MUs were
W: sneaky, sneaky and esper
L: AnT

Might consider this for our monthly legacy (which will be next sunday).

I used a no sb belcher. Both belcher and etws are in my main.

[HatterofMad]

Taking Blecher to the SCGOpen in KC this weekend, and will report on how it goes.First time running it with the wishes since I couldn't find them before the last one, so I am happy to finally be running the full deck. Anyone else heading to the Open?

[chainedcurses]

I took Belcher to the Open last weekend in Baltimore. In 9 rounds, I went 5-4, going 5-2 before dropping the final 2 rounds. My games were

Rd1: ANT (W 2-1)
Rd2: Shardless BUG (L 2-0)
Rd3: Lands (W 2-1)
Rd4: ANT (W 2-1)
Rd5: ANT (L 2-1)
Rd6: BUG Delver (W 2-1) (won G3 with Grapeshot)
Rd7: Death and Taxes (W 2-1)
Rd8: Elves(Ross Merriam) (L 2-1)
Rd9: Elves (L 2-0)


All in all I feel pretty good about continuing to play this deck in these tournaments. I got pretty lucky though dodging FOW pretty much all day.

Side note: I am 0-4 against Elves. I don't know why I cannot beat that deck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[paeng4983]

I took Belcher to the Open last weekend in Baltimore. In 9 rounds, I went 5-4, going 5-2 before dropping the final 2 rounds. My games were

Rd1: ANT (W 2-1)
Rd2: Shardless BUG (L 2-0)
Rd3: Lands (W 2-1)
Rd4: ANT (W 2-1)
Rd5: ANT (L 2-1)
Rd6: BUG Delver (W 2-1) (won G3 with Grapeshot)
Rd7: Death and Taxes (W 2-1)
Rd8: Elves(Ross Merriam) (L 2-1)
Rd9: Elves (L 2-0)


All in all I feel pretty good about continuing to play this deck in these tournaments. I got pretty lucky though dodging FOW pretty much all day.

Side note: I am 0-4 against Elves. I don't know why I cannot beat that deck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Against elves, I normally loo and pray for a belcher route. ETW route cannot out run elves. And since you mentioned Grapeshot, I bet you have Burning Wishes in your build, go for Tendrils. Good job on the open. Can you do a brief report, sharing what you can still remember, from your weekend’s open. Thanks!

[HatterofMad]

Quick report from SCG Open KC:

Had a blast playing the deck especially since this was my first time running the Burning Wish version, it really did open up a lot of things

Round 1 L 1-2

Junk Deathblade: Just had nothing going the second two games after a pretty awesome game one, turn 2 and 3 Hymn to Tourach after mulling to 5 but still stormed out to make 10 goblins for the win. It was pretty fun for everybody. But games 2 and 3 had me up against alot more hate, and couldn't quite get there.

Round 2 W 2-0

Death and Taxes: These games went by really quick. Game 1, had a probe to let me see a hand of Waste, 2x Vail, 2x Plains, Mother of Runes, and an Aven Mindcensor. Seeing nothing to worry about I had a turn 1 hand and we moved to game 2, which went much like the first he dropped a plains and a Mom but another probe let me see another hand with no answers, but he had some of his sideboard cards, Thalia, Revoker, Ethersworn Canonist, but I had another good hand.

Round 3 W 2-1

Lands: These were fun games and I hadn't thought about this match up really. I got surprised by the Glacial Chasm off a crop rotation in response to my cracking LED to activate Belcher. But the deck is slow and my good hands won me the game.

Round 4 L 0-2

Elves: There were scary fast and I had to mull down pretty far. With having more EtWs then Belchers this match up was hard since their creatures are better. This was the first game of the day where I was starting to doubt the wisdom of 4 Chrome Mox, they just always seemed like bad top decks.

Round 5 W 2-0

Death and Taxes: This game was much like the first, they don't have much to interact with you game 1, and game 2 I knew I had to go belcher since storming was hard with their storm hate, got to drop some early artifacts, including a LED. Got the Belcher off the topdeck right after they dropped Canonist, with 7 mana on board.

Round 6 L 1-2

Burn: This shouldn't have been a bad match up but a case of bad hands and awful draws left me with a blind activation of Belcher as my only win and Taiga was the 10th card, letting them win it before I could activate again. It was also against a friend I had come to the tournament with so that was no fun.

Round 7 L

Can't remember what I faced here, or the record, sorry.

Round 8 L 1-2

MUD: Game 1 was good but they are quick to build a board and no number of goblin tokens could fight through Wurmcoils or Batterskulls. Not to mention a Sundering Titan wearing a Batterskull

Round 9 W 2-0

Sneak and Show: Won the first game off a quick storm and lost game 2 to Emmy + Grizz, plus Daze and Spell Pierce to back it up. Game 3 I had a good hand that let me fight through, Xantid swarm ate a FoW round 1 and when I cast Belcher a turn or two later 2 Brainstorms and a Ponder couldn't find another one.


So not the best record 4-5 but it was a blast, going to play with the Chrome Moxes. Thanks for all the help in this thread, I really felt that I played pretty smartly and the games that I lost were either to blame on bad draws or slow hands, I can't think of to many play mistakes on my part, though I am sure I made some.

[chainedcurses]

Against elves, I normally loo and pray for a belcher route. ETW route cannot out run elves. And since you mentioned Grapeshot, I bet you have Burning Wishes in your build, go for Tendrils. Good job on the open. Can you do a brief report, sharing what you can still remember, from your weekend’s open. Thanks!

I guess I should start with my list. I think it's a pretty typical Belcher list with Burning Wishes.

4x Tinder Wall
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide

4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Chrome Mox
4x Rite of Flame
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Land Grant
4x Manamorphose
4x Seething Song
4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Burning Wish
3x Empty the Warrens

1x Stomping Ground

SIDEBOARD
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Guttural Response
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Grapeshot
1x Hull Breach
1x Void Snare


My Open weekend started Saturday night when I packed up myself and my 3 kids and made the hour drive to Baltimore. I luck out in that regard as my mom still lives down there so free food and lodging! Sunday morning I got to the event hall a little before 8, bought my copy of Void Snare and paid my entry fee. I was a bit nervous because Belcher had been not so small lately and I was afraid there might be a larger concentration of evil decks. For the record, my tournament Pandora station was Rammstein Radio. As they call for round 1, I'm in the midst of Feuer Frei! (this will be relevant in a second). I get my table number and make my way over, just as I take my phone from my pocket to pause the song... it ends. Alright good mood now from that perfect timing.

Round 1: ANT (W; 2-1)

Game 1: On the draw, I make some number of goblins. He plays much like Sneak and Show until he makes a land drop of Gemstone Mine. This tips me off to a storm deck. He can't get there with the goblin beatdowns

Game 2: No sideboarding in this one, he makes me discard the opening hand win con on turn 1. I never draw another one.

Game 3: Turn 1: Belcher. Activate. Win.


After the round, I catch up with a few buddies. I'm jamming away when round 2 pairings go up.


Round 2: Shardless BUG (L; 2-0)

Game 1: On the play, Mull to 6, get Belcher forced.

SIDEBOARDING:
-2 Land Grant
-1 Tinder Wall
-1 Chrome Mox

+4 Xantid Swarm

Game 2: On the play, I probe him revealing a hand with 0 counterspells or Golgari Charms. I exile Elvish Spirit Guide and cast Xantid Swarm, despite having the ETW storm out in my hand. Misplay central over here, I never draw another mana source to get my storm started.

After the round, I'm very ticked off at myself. I have a smoke, eat some beef jerky, and jam out in preparation for my 8-1 and top 8.

Round 3: Lands (W; 2-1)

Game 1: On the draw, Belcher. Activate. Win.

Game 2: No sideboarding for this one either, I turn 1 16 goblins on the draw. He topdecks Tabernacle. A few turns later, it's Marit Lage vs. a goblin... I think we know who wins in THAT battle.

Game 3: Back on the play, I make turn 1 belcher with no activation mana. Draw: Burning Wish, Burning Wish. Luckily he doesn't kill me in this time, and I draw LED. Play, crack, activate Belcher. Opponent responds by casting Crop Rotation on one of his lands to search out Glacial Chasm. At this point, I figure he's locked me out with Exploration and then he only needs a Loam, but I do not concede. I flip Mox, Land. I pass turn, he opts not to pay for his Chasm. Loams back a Wasteland, the Chasm, and something else. He makes his land drops: Wasteland. Grove of the Burnwillows. He passes turn. I flip LED off the top, activate Belcher again. no Crop Rotation this time as he takes all the damage.

So at this point, I'm 2-1 and feeling good. I get Cedric to sign my Empty the Warrens, and he promises me some of his Goblin tokens after the next round.

Round 4: ANT (W; 2-1)

Game 1: On the play, Goblins get there.

Game 2: On the draw, I storm out on turn 1 for Gobbos. He takes advantage of my lowered life total and Tendrils me for exactly lethal.

Game 3: On the play, Turn 1: Belcher. Activate. Win.

Stoked because I'm 3-1 and my 7-1 is very viable at this point. I get 10 signed Cedric Phillips tokens eat some more Jerky, jam out and mentally prepare to rattle off the 4 straight wins needed. I see Feline slightly before the pairings go up and have her sign my proplaymat. She gives me a hi-5 for being X-1 with Belcher.

Round 5: ANT (L; 2-1)

Game 1: On the draw, I see fetch, sea, ponder. I go off with Belcher on my turn.

SIDEBOARDING:
-2 Land Grant
-1 Tinder Wall
-1 Chrome Mox

+4 Guttural Response

Game 2: Mull to 6 on the draw. He T1 Thoughtseizes my Burning Wish (the win con). Never draw another, his Tendrils hurt a lot.

SIDEBOARDING:
Return to main deck configuration.

Game 3: Mull to 5 on the play, keep a hand that can make 6 goblins. Turn 1, I probe him, seeing a hand that is nowhere close to going off. I opt out of the rest of the storm for more Goblins. He topdecks Thoughtseize, nabs my ETW. A few turns later, I haven't drawn a win condition so I cast an Elvish Spirit Guide. I beat down with the ESG and a judge walks up behind me, looks at our board state and asks if the ESG is in play. I give him the affirmative and he sits down to enjoy ESG beats.... but the opponent goes off next turn.

After my longest ever round with Belcher (we finished with left 7 minutes on the clock), I eat some jerky and prepare for my 7-2 top 16 performance.

Round 6: BUG Delver (W; 2-1)

Game 1: On the draw, see fetch, trop, brainstorm. Belcher. Activate. Win.

SIDEBOARDING: See Last Round

Game 2: On the draw, lose to Goyfs after getting Belcher forced.

SIDEBOARDING:
-4 Guttural Response

+4 Xantid Swarm

Game 3: Here is the Grapeshot game. On the play, exile ESG, Xantid Swarm. It resolves and I pass turn. He goes draw-land-go. I get the turn back and attack. Nothing doing, pass turn. He plays draw-land-Delver of Secrets. On my turn I know I need to do something in order to get the Delver gone or I have no shot anymore in this game. I attack, trigger Swarm, then storm up for Grapeshot plus 6 copies. 1 targets Delver, 6 go to the dome. We go back to draw-go for a while. I probe and see Land, Land, Pierce, Pierce, Daze. Glad I protected that Swarm! A few turns later, I probe again and he's added a Force to the mix. We go another few turns, and I'm ready to make Goblins. I declare the attack with my Swarm, his hand shoots up and he calls for a judge. Asks the Judge is if Swarm is a trigger. Get the affirmative, stifle the trigger. I pass turn. Next turn I draw Song, attack with the Swarm, trigger, no stifle. I go rite, ritual, ritual, song, wish, past in flames, rite then I ask a just to confirm if the rite sees itself in the GY when casting (I did not think it did, but I wanted to confirm because of things like Golgari Grave-Troll, which will see itself). As the Judge is double-checking(BTW it doesn't), I show my opponent my graveyard, pointing out how I have him dead on the Grapeshot, so he scoops.

I was stoked to be on the run for 7-2! I told all my buddies about Grapeshot, because they laughed when I showed it to them in the board. Jerky, Smoke, Jams.

Round 7: Death & Taxes (W; 2-1)

Game 1: On the draw, I make 12 goblins. He drops SFM, fetches Batterskull. I cannot compete.

Game 2: No sideboarding, Belcher. Activate. Win.

Game 3: No sideboarding, Belcher. Activate. Win.

The Jerky is gone. I'm 5-2. Top 64 needs to happen, especially after 68th and the tiebreaker heartbreak last time. Pairings hit Twitter. iPhone out, Twitter up. Ross Merriam... Elves... dangit.

Round 8: Ross Merriam with Elves (L; 2-1)

Pre-game 1 I get Ross to sign my proplaymat

Game 1: Make goblins, he can't get there by the time they kill him. Woo! Get the Elvish Monkey off my back this round! Let's do it!

Game 2: Mull to 5 (yes, it was that bad) still keep a possible T1 10 goblins... until he soul reads my ETW with a Therapy. A turn or 2 later, natural order for hoof and I'm dead.

Game 3: Turn 1 Belcher. No Activate. Hand's empty. All I need is the mana, draw nothing but win cons. I die to the hoof with a hand of something like Belcher, Wish, ETW, Belcher. I refused to peek at the top card, I didn't want to know.

I remark to Ross as we're leaving the table. "I bet I get paired against Elves again. I can't beat your deck for some reason." We both chuckle and part. Jams, last smoke. Let's do it.

Round 9: Elves (L; 2-0)

Game 1: Mull to 5. Am I playing against Elves again? My deck never cooperates against Elves. Opponent goes Bayou, DRS. Brain says "OK, just another BUG deck. You've already beat 1 today." I can't go off on my turn 1 and pass the turn. Turn 2 for the opponent goes, Verdant, Crack for Forest, Glimpse, Visionary. Brain says "Well, here we go again." He drops me.

Game 2: Mull to 6. T1 nothing. Opponent therapys my Belcher. Brain says "See! I told you!" He's got a few things out and I go and make 26 (yes, TWENTY SIX) goblins. He takes his next turn and NOs for Hoof. I'm at 10, he's attacking for... 26! I block to clear his board of his attackers, which sweeps my stuff. We immediately start speaking of how I should have left myself some attackers and taken some of the damage... Which he was right about. A few turns later, GSZ for Hoof ends my day.


I know, I remember a lot for being as far back as it was. I hope that my next tournament I run better than I did here at the end. I'll probably be representing our great deck at GP Jersey next.

[HatterofMad]

1x Void Snare



Thanks for the recap of yoru Open, always nice to read other people's experience.

How are you liking the Void Snare? I was talking about it with someone the other day and they were sad it wasn't an instant and I explained why I was glad it was sorcery, but I never made the leap to Belcher Board with it. It would be a handy piece of tech at times I think.

[chainedcurses]

Thanks for the recap of yoru Open, always nice to read other people's experience.

How are you liking the Void Snare? I was talking about it with someone the other day and they were sad it wasn't an instant and I explained why I was glad it was sorcery, but I never made the leap to Belcher Board with it. It would be a handy piece of tech at times I think.

It never came up, but I like having that option. It's smoother than Chain of Vapor because we don't have to dilute our deck in order to play it, so I'm happy to keep it there as opposed to anything else ATM.

[dissy]

Hey Guys I'am new to the deck,

Played it yesterday on a weekly mtg evening with friends played 6 matches these were the matches

Mud: 2-1
Lands: 2-0
Death and Taxes: 1-2 drew 8 cards without a mana spell:( so that was verry lucky on his side i guess i win at least 4 out of 5 vs D&T
Elves: 2-1 turn 1 18 creatures to mutch for elves
Miracles: 0-2 (thats problably my worst matchup)
Patriot: 1-2 (stifles fow spell pierces en dazes)

I play the standard wishless build. With only 4 sideboard card.
I would like ur guys oppinion about gutteral response vs autumns veil.

Since i only play 4 sideboard cards and i want the best card for the meta i'am not sure what to choose.
My instinct says its Autumns veil because it can not only stop counterspells, but also golgari charms and toxic deluge.
I also would like to know what to board out when sideboarding......

Sunday iam going to a legacy tournament with around 40/50 people. First time i take this deck to a tournament (used to play winstigator). I will take notes of that tournament and post them here on monday.

Thx in advance for all the feedback

[chainedcurses]

My instinct says its Autumns veil because it can not only stop counterspells, but also golgari charms and toxic deluge.
I also would like to know what to board out when sideboarding......

Sunday iam going to a legacy tournament with around 40/50 people. First time i take this deck to a tournament (used to play winstigator). I will take notes of that tournament and post them here on monday.

Thx in advance for all the feedback

Autumn's Veil doesn't actually stop Deluge or Charm since neither card actually targets your creatures. In a wishless build, I'd run 4 Guttural Responses and 4 Xantid Swarms as the sideboard. I normally side in Swarms on the play and Responses on the draw. My typical board out plan(I am running LEDs and Wishes.) is -1 Chrome Mox -1 Tinder Wall and -2 Land Grant.

Good Luck in your tournament. Hopefully you do well! Look forward to seeing your report.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dissy]

Autumn's Veil doesn't actually stop Deluge or Charm since neither card actually targets your creatures. In a wishless build, I'd run 4 Guttural Responses and 4 Xantid Swarms as the sideboard. I normally side in Swarms on the play and Responses on the draw. My typical board out plan(I am running LEDs and Wishes.) is -1 Chrome Mox -1 Tinder Wall and -2 Land Grant.

Good Luck in your tournament. Hopefully you do well! Look forward to seeing your report.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thx for the response,

I like the cards u boarding out and never knew what to board out;)

So i guess i go for the guteral response. Does anyone play without a sideboard? Because for every card u board in u have to board out a piece of the puzzle. Isnt the main deck not just strong enough? And when your opponent has force of will he has it not mutch u can do about it. Or is that just to easy thinking of me???

Do we actually have a bigger chance (read big enough chance) against for example mirracles or rug/bug when we side in a set of gutteral response.
Or should we just go all in on the combo and see what happends?

[Blastoderm]

4 Carpet of Flower is insane in this deck. If you have infernal tutor in the sideboard it allows you to play the late game and your wishes become a belcher kill.

[dissy]

4 Carpet of Flower is insane in this deck. If you have infernal tutor in the sideboard it allows you to play the late game and your wishes become a belcher kill.

isnt carpet of flowers more something for the ANT deck. We just want to go off turn 1 mabey 2 or else go to the next game:P

[chainedcurses]

4 Carpet of Flower is insane in this deck. If you have infernal tutor in the sideboard it allows you to play the late game and your wishes become a belcher kill.

Carpet of Flowers just seems too slow. We don't want a late game with Belcher. What's that old saying?

"Early game is shuffling, mid game is mulligans, late game is turn 1"

Or something like that. That is Belcher's gameplan. I can't think of a game I've played with the deck, win or lose, where I've wanted a Carpet.

Also with the way the deck works, I cannot see what cards we would cut for them. I've played both wishless and wish Belcher and I think the cards in the deck lists are pretty set at this point unless we can get a good red ritual or something like Manamorphose again.

That's just my thoughts though. I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on Carpet in the deck though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Blastoderm]

Carpet of Flowers just seems too slow. We don't want a late game with Belcher. What's that old saying?

"Early game is shuffling, mid game is mulligans, late game is turn 1"

Or something like that. That is Belcher's gameplan. I can't think of a game I've played with the deck, win or lose, where I've wanted a Carpet.

Also with the way the deck works, I cannot see what cards we would cut for them. I've played both wishless and wish Belcher and I think the cards in the deck lists are pretty set at this point unless we can get a good red ritual or something like Manamorphose again.

That's just my thoughts though. I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on Carpet in the deck though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't get me wrong, I always mulligan for a turn 1 hand. It's just that carpet really gets you back in the game if your shit gets countered. My sideboard (minus wish-board) is 1 Forest, 4 Xantid Swarm, 4 Carpet of Flowers. I've won many games after my turn 1 hand fails to get there.

[WarpWorld]

Carpet of Flowers just seems too slow. We don't want a late game with Belcher. What's that old saying?

"Early game is shuffling, mid game is mulligans, late game is turn 1"

Or something like that. That is Belcher's gameplan. I can't think of a game I've played with the deck, win or lose, where I've wanted a Carpet.

Also with the way the deck works, I cannot see what cards we would cut for them. I've played both wishless and wish Belcher and I think the cards in the deck lists are pretty set at this point unless we can get a good red ritual or something like Manamorphose again.

That's just my thoughts though. I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on Carpet in the deck though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

"Early game is shuffling, mid game is mulligans, late game is turn 1"
This is always true game 1 when you have no clue what you are up against and they don't know they need to mulligan to FOW to have a chance. But games 2 & 3 against those said blue decks you need to slow down a little bit sometimes you can steal a win with an opening hand Empty because they were banking on forcing your BW or belcher. I have completely moved away from the blasts and red counterspells on the sideboard. I have found that they are not very proactive and force you to try and generate more mana just to have the back up while they are also taking up a card in your hand. My non wish board right now is...3 Xantid Swarm 3 Carpet of Flowers 1 Forest. I find that this seems to be the right numbers for those blue decks because Carpet adds mana to help play around soft counters like daze and spell pierce. While Xantid swarm stops counters altogether. Because carpet adds mana at the beginning of a main phase you can attack then add mana and go off. It also punishes them for playing islands. It acts like a ritual and the longer the game goes the more mana it makes. It has won me a few games that I had no right to win.

[paeng4983]

I played in a small legacy tournament and ended
4-0.

Mud 2-1
Rug 2-1
Burn 2-0
Stoneblade 2-1

Notable play was against mud, he dropped a 1st turn chalice for one.
Petal SSG SSE chrome imprint rite of flame into belcher top decked a led the turn after for the win
were my 1st moves.
Im still using the no sb build belcher.

[dissy]

I played in a small legacy tournament and ended
4-0.

Mud 2-1
Rug 2-1
Burn 2-0
Stoneblade 2-1

Notable play was against mud, he dropped a 1st turn chalice for one.
Petal SSG SSE chrome imprint rite of flame into belcher top decked a led the turn after for the win
were my 1st moves.
Im still using the no sb build belcher.


Do you have a decklist of your deck?
I want to play at my local legacy sunday.

Thx in advance

[paeng4983]

Do you have a decklist of your deck?
I want to play at my local legacy sunday.

Thx in advance

Here

1 Taiga

4 Tinder Wall
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith

3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Chrome Mox

4 Manamorphose
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Rite of Flame
4 Land Grant
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Pyretic Ritual


SB
just sleeve up 15 random cards and side-in cards like you're actually putting in some SB cards.
^_^
enjoy
enjoy

[paeng4983]

27 Sept 2014
I just got home from an 18man legacy tourney.
High tide, sneak & show, doomsday, UR delver and reanimator players were there too. This is going to be a good day for belcher.
We had it 4 rounds and here were my MUs.
Oops all spell 2-0
Goblins rw 2-1
Bw control 2-0
Zoo ID

Until next time.

[dissy]

27 Sept 2014
I just got home from an 18man legacy tourney.
High tide, sneak & show, doomsday, UR delver and reanimator players were there too. This is going to be a good day for belcher.
We had it 4 rounds and here were my MUs.
Oops all spell 2-0
Goblins rw 2-1
Bw control 2-0
Zoo ID

Until next time.

Nice seems u got nice matchups:)
I played at a local 18 man legacy as well i got these matchups
RUG Delver
Patriot
Lands
Infect

lost all;) were so dependant on our matchups so i think iam gonna drop the deck again. No chance against counter decks.
and over 75% of our meta is blue;)

[paeng4983]

I joined a 25man with cut to top8 legacy tournament the other day with this deck.
My MUs were:

Miracles 2-0
Sneaky Show 1-2
Dredge 2-1
Patriot 2-0
Omnitell ID

landed 5th after swiss.

top8
merfolk 1-2

After quarters, I seeded 8th.
Taking home an Ons Bloodstained Mire.

I'll be writing a brief tourney report about my belcher experiences since July.
I'll post the link here as soon as the site admin for that page posts it.

Cheers fellow belchers!
^_^

[Infinitium]

..And on the offbeat side of things; Treasure Cruise suddenly allows the Paths version to omit playing any draw-3 maindecked whatsoever. Just chain a bunch of cantrips to fill the yard, Burning Wish as a 1RU Draw 3 and proceed to chain into Tendrils normally from there.

It also means that Recross gets more playable as a sideboard card even in "traditional" Belcher builds, as 1x each of Recross, Cruise and Tendrils in the sideboard is a pretty low opportunity cost all things considered.

[kombatkiwi]

..And on the offbeat side of things; Treasure Cruise suddenly allows the Paths version to omit playing any draw-3 maindecked whatsoever. Just chain a bunch of cantrips to fill the yard, Burning Wish as a 1RU Draw 3 and proceed to chain into Tendrils normally from there.


This is one option; like you say, if you have 3 mana and a cantrip post-recross, you can now win without having mediate in your deck and play a Chancellor of the Tangle or something else instead.

make this stack:

[Top]
Manamorphose
Burning wish -> Cruise
LED
LED
Cantrip
Wish -> Tendrils

You can add more 0-mana cantrips before the treasure cruise to feed delve and build your storm count

Another alternative for the same situation

[Top]
Manamorphose
Wish -> Cruise
LED
LED
Cantrip
Wish -> Infernal Contract
LED
LED
X
Cantrip
Charbelcher

What you can do instead though is cut the mediate from the main and play a treasure cruise in that slot.

Previously to win with RTP (if I understand the deck correctly) you needed either
1 cantrip and 3 mana
2 cantrips and 0 mana
1 cantrip and 2 mana if you are playing Night's Whisper or Dangerous Wager or a similar card

With Ancestral Recall in your maindeck you can now win with only 1 cantrip and 1 mana!

[Top]
X Probe/Wraith for delve food / storm count
Cruise
LED
LED
Cantrip
Wish - > Tendrils

Alternatively

[Top]
X Probe/Wraith for delve food
Cruise
LED
LED
Cantrip
Wish -> Infernal Contract
LED
LED
Cantrip
X
Charbelcher

You can use Act on Impulse as a wish target instead of Contract with slightly modified piles if you're afraid of getting bolted or something.

This seems like a pretty good switch to make as reducing the requirements to go off makes your deck more resilient to mulligans

It does make you lose to Leyline of the Void but who plays that card anyway
Another downside is that the 1 mana has to be blue so you need to either imprint a probe or use petal. But if you have 2+ mana and a cantrip you still win easily with R/G mana by putting manamorphose above cruise in the stacks so it seems like it's still an upgrade over meditate.


It also means that Recross gets more playable as a sideboard card even in "traditional" Belcher builds, as 1x each of Recross, Cruise and Tendrils in the sideboard is a pretty low opportunity cost all things considered.

I'm not so sure this works very well as to really take advantage of recross you need to have 0-mana cantrips in your deck, which a lot of people seem to not like doing. Say you're playing 4 probe in your 'normal belcher', what is the best thing you can do?

stack:
wish->cruise
LED
LED
Probe
Belcher

For this to win you the game on the spot you need to make 5RRGU without LEDs and have a probe and a wish and put enough cards in the graveyard to make your cruise cost 1

Going for tendrils instead of Charbelcher, or doing the Infernal Contract trick in the above piles only reduces this cost by 1

Seems like a long shot but I guess there isn't really that much competition for sideboard slots

[Infinitium]

BW -> Recross is unlikely to win that very same turn, but stacking LED/Cantrip on top means it will always win within 2 turns at the very latest undisrupted. This is comparable in speed to EtW, and not susceptible to mass removal or blockers (stack in question being LED,Probe->BW->TC->LED,LED,Probe->Charbelcher; using the Taiga to provide R for BW).

[kombatkiwi]

BW -> Recross is unlikely to win that very same turn, but stacking LED/Cantrip on top means it will always win within 2 turns at the latest undisrupted. This is comparable in speed to EtW, and not susceptible to mass removal or blockers.

I guess if you're more worried about Pyroclasm than counterspells then yeah this is probably the best use for it

The 4th card from meditate does give you some extra flexibility to play around hate which I didn't really consider in the above post

[Richard Cheese]

..And on the offbeat side of things; Treasure Cruise suddenly allows the Paths version to omit playing any draw-3 maindecked whatsoever. Just chain a bunch of cantrips to fill the yard, Burning Wish as a 1RU Draw 3 and proceed to chain into Tendrils normally from there.

It also means that Recross gets more playable as a sideboard card even in "traditional" Belcher builds, as 1x each of Recross, Cruise and Tendrils in the sideboard is a pretty low opportunity cost all things considered.

This is...way too interesting. Anyone care to share a sample list?

[Infinitium]

You can fit it into pretty much any Belcher list running Burning Wish and at least 1 free cantrip (albeit RtP does generally get better the more cantrips you run; eg Street Wraith allows you to run Infernal Contract chains that can also remove hate permanents before killing). My current SB for reference:

1 Recross the Paths
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Infernal Contract
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

1 Reverent Silence
1 Pyroclasm
1 Flame Slash
1 Shattering Spree
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare

4 Carpet of Flowers

[Lucipher2k]

I'm sorry if this already has been asked, but I'd like to know if anybody tried out Pact of Negation (https://deckbox.org/mtg/Pact%20of%20Negation) ?
Maybe it could at least protect the Belcher Combo (I know it doesn't work with EtW).

[beebles]

You can fit it into pretty much any Belcher list running Burning Wish and at least 1 free cantrip (albeit RtP does generally get better the more cantrips you run; eg Street Wraith allows you to run Infernal Contract chains that can also remove hate permanents before killing). My current SB for reference:

1 Recross the Paths
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Infernal Contract
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

1 Reverent Silence
1 Pyroclasm
1 Flame Slash
1 Shattering Spree
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare

4 Carpet of Flowers


Can you pull off the RTP combo very often? IT seems REALLY hard to pull off to me.

Specifically it seems to me that you need at least 6 mana of three different colors (2 mana for burning wish, 3 for RTP, then 1 for Cruise)

But you can't use LED to do it since you need to have a Cantrip in hand to dig for the Cruise so you can't crack LED when you burning wish for RTP.

So basically you need to be able to generate 6 mana, including blue mana with a Cantrip and a burning wish in hand without using LED. That seems pretty tricky to pull off.

[kombatkiwi]

That was the point I raised but the counter argument is that you can wish for RTP cracking LED in response, cast RTP stacking LED and a cantrip and then go off in 2 draw steps

Which gives you a similar clock to ETW and gives you the option to play around pyroclasm/EE

[Infinitium]

It's also one mana cheaper than BW->EtW, giving some extra playable hands against goldfish decks. Maybe I ought to explain my sideboard plan a bit more; basically it's intended to work with a 8-cantrip (2 Manamorphose, 2 Street Wraith, 4 Gitaxian Probe) maindeck running the classic kill suite of 4 Charbelcher, 4 Burning Wish and 3 Empty the Warrens MD. Pretty standard in other words. The G1 gameplan is classic Belcher, with the additional perk that any 5 mana + Burning Wish hand can also lead into the following sequence:

[LED,GP->(...)->MM->BW(TC)->LED,LED,GP->BW(ToA)]

[Cast Recross the Paths off Burning Wish stacking your deck so that you'll end up with LED and a Probe in hand/table (might take one or two draw steps unless you luck out). Then cast Probe cracking LED in response cycling however many cantrips you need to reach 7 cards in your graveyard. End the chain by casting Manamorphose to end up with RRU in your mana pool and Burning Wish in hand. Wish for Treasure Cruise, drawing 2 LED's and another Probe. Cast Probe, cracking the LEDs' for RRRBBB to draw another Wish for Tendrils of Agony. Win.]

Chalice@1 or Ethersworn Canonist can (slowly) be dealt with using a [BW(TC)->LED,LED,SW->GC] setup wishing for a cruise for LED's and Street Wraith to draw into Charbelcher.

Now, postboard is where things get interesting. If you anticipate the opponent bringing in permanent based hate (or stifle), side in the Treasure Cruise from the wishboard and prepare for for the mega-gosu wreck-your-shit-stack:

[3 mana*,GP->(...)->TC->LED,LED,GP->BW(IC)->LED,LED,MM,GP->BW(**),BW(ToA)]

[Cast Recross and chain some cantrips as per above, then cast TC with 2 mana remaining in pool. Draw and crack 2 extra LEDs casting Probe into another Wish for Infernal Contract. Draw the final 2 LEDs, Probe and Manamorphose. You should have 3 mana remaining. Cast Probe, then cast Manamorphose in response with the surplus mana, then crack the LEDs. You'll end up with two Wishes and 9 mana of assorted colors. Use the first Wish for either Void Snare, Reverent Silence or Cabal Therapy to either remove a permanent preventing you from winning or whatever funky tech your opponent has one hand (such as Stifle). Then Wish for Tendrils and win***.]

*Requires additional 3 non-LED mana if going for Stifle/Void Snare, 2 if going for Reverent Silence unless you bring them MD from the wishboard.
** Your answer of choice
***Sequence of play will vary some depending on what cards you've drawn that game.

Of course, apart from Leyline of Sanctity and Solitary Confinement there aren't a whole lot of permanents seeing competitive play that will prevent Tendrils but not the spell sequence up to it. Answering those and Stifle once in a blue moon is still good with the minor SB commitment though. Still a pretty good use of sideboard space all things considered imo.



// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
2 [MMA] Street Wraith

// Spells
4 [MMA] Desperate Ritual
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [GPX] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [FNM] Gitaxian Probe
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [M11] Pyretic Ritual
2 [MMA] Manamorphose
3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [MOR] Recross the Paths
SB: 1 [8E] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [MMA] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [7E] Infernal Contract
SB: 1 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 4 [US] Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 [DDK] Flame Slash
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [M15] Void Snare
SB: 1 [KTK] Treasure Cruise

[Namida]

How consistently can you use Recross the Paths? At first glance it seems like it's not something you can do all the time because you have a Taiga in your deck.

[beebles]

Thank you for that detailed explanation. I understand it better now.I just bought the cards for this deck and I wanted to try it. I guess you go for the rctp kill if you randomly draw 5 mana, wish, led, and wraith/probe where you either draw the taiga or land grant for it. I would guess such hands occur what like 5 percent of the time? Probably a lot easier on the draw? I suppose it comes up as much as random goblin war strikes or what not?

I had a couple ideas for exotic kills of my own.

Living wish-storm entity: this would take up two sb slots. But would in theory come up when a swarm of goblins won't get there due to golgari charm or elecktrickery. Should in theory be able to fairly easily make a 8/8 or 9/9 hastey guy. Also enables bullets like containment priest or karakas.

Tendrils of agony, infernal tutor- people seem to run these anyway. Was thinking of adding a second tendrils so post board I could run 1 main 1 board. This would enable a much easier tendrils kill. If you can hit 8 mana you can wish for infernal tutor, infernal tutor for the tendrils. This would come up against decks that can race the goblins such as elves.

Living death- a random burning wish target that can wrath their board and kill them if you draw a freakish amount of street wraiths. Only for quad wraith lists. Useful perhaps against stone forge where you can't race the 'skull.

Full on reanimator. The sb would look like: 1 empty the warrens (to enable traditional game plan) and then 4 elesh norn, 3 sphinx of the steel wind, 4 reanimate, 3 exhume. This plan is a little nuts and only works on the draw really. You board in everything except the etw and a single reanimate. Then you draw discard go discard a fatty and then turn 2 reanimate/exhume or wish for reanimate. The logic of this plan is the reanimator game plan can play around pierce/daze easily. Also many decks like delver have often 0 outs to elesh norn or sphinx of steel wind. Also you can go off turn 1 if you have the god hand of exhume, fattie, LED and can some how generate 1b. You board out like 3 etw, 4 belcher, 6 rituals/can trips. The wish for etw plan remains an option and you might randomly discard a fattie to an led activation only to randomly draw a reanimate. Also you might have to dedicate another sb slot to running a bayou- not sure on that.

What do people think of these plans? Too cute?

[Infinitium]

With 5 effective Taigas in a 52 card deck you have a ~53% chance of seeing at least one in your opening 7. These odds increase to ~56% if you run the full 12 "free" cantrips. Multiply by the ~45/48% odds of seeing at least one Burning Wish (assuming 4) and you'd expect to see both together in roughly 23/27% of your opening hands after playing out the free spells on the play (available mana notwithstanding). Pretty often.

It also enables BW as a credible topdecked win condition in games where your opponent mulliganed into FoW. How often this is relveant is hard to quantify however.

[Lucipher2k]

Has anybody of you some sideboard advices for me on how to board against the most common decks?
Also I'm not quite sure about the sideboard and if I got everything important in it.
I think the 4x Xantid Swarm and 4x Pyroclast are Set due to the bad Matchup vs. every kind of blue FoW Decks.

Btw, the list, a pretty stock one:

4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Tinder Wall

4x Manamorphose
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Seething Song
4x Land Grant
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Burning Wish
3x Empty the Warrans

4x Gobelin Charbelcher
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox

1x Taiga

SB:

4x Xantid Swarm
4x Pyroblast
1x Empty the Warrans
1x Pyroclasm
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Hull Breach
1x Shattering Spree
1x Reverent Silence

[jokey2]

Hi,

like a month ago i played Belcher on my locals with 34 participants and ended top 8. Since i play this deck the results were always arround X:2.

@Lucipher2k,

your SB looks good but I would add 2-3 Carpet of Flowers because blue deck must handle it quickly or they are in a bad shape. I would also play Goblin War Strike an Diminishing returns as Burning Wish Targets. Opening with Wish + Empty and winning Turn 2 is great and happens more often as you think.
Recently i have more problems with discard than with counter because loosing dice roll with Belcher is just bad.

[feline]

I just realized, this deck has fallen off the map since the printing of Khans, with the banning of Treasure Cruise, is anyone on this deck again?

[Blastoderm]

I just realized, this deck has fallen off the map since the printing of Khans, with the banning of Treasure Cruise, is anyone on this deck again?

Playing this at a local on Tuesday.

I'll be on Belcher until the end of time <3

[paeng4983]

Playing this at a local on Tuesday.

I'll be on Belcher until the end of time <3

Last February 1st we had our Monthly legacy wherein 45-50 attended. After our 6 rounds of swiss, the belcher guy landed second, but lost his semis to DnT. I was able to talked to him before our top 8 and he said that he had turn one wins either through Belcher or X goblins (ETW) like 90% of the time.

Not sure if he is in this page.

[Blastoderm]

Last February 1st we had our Monthly legacy wherein 45-50 attended. After our 6 rounds of swiss, the belcher guy landed second, but lost his semis to DnT. I was able to talked to him before our top 8 and he said that he had turn one wins either through Belcher or X goblins (ETW) like 90% of the time.

Not sure if he is in this page.

I've had great consistency playing Belcher as well in terms of Turn 1 hands.

One thing I was wondering... is it worth playing Chancellor of the Annex over Gitaxian Probe maindeck?

[Bosaapje]

I've had great consistency playing Belcher as well in terms of Turn 1 hands.

One thing I was wondering... is it worth playing Chancellor of the Annex over Gitaxian Probe maindeck?

I think that it could be worth it. Over 50% of the meta is now blue and even though the opponent doesn't always have FoW it's still a great way to prevent counters. Being a turn slower vs. your whole combo getting countered is not that bad I guess.

[Blastoderm]

I think that it could be worth it. Over 50% of the meta is now blue and even though the opponent doesn't always have FoW it's still a great way to prevent counters. Being a turn slower vs. your whole combo getting countered is not that bad I guess.

It also stops Turn 1 discard if you're on the draw. The issue with probe is that while you have a high percentage of getting another mana source with it, you still have the chance of bricking and hitting another win con which you don't need. Sometimes keeping a hand based on "if my probe hits a mana source I can go off" is a problem. Note that hands with mana+probes are always a mulligan. Even hands with wincon+mana+probe but no turn 1 mana source is also a mulligan. I think it should be either Chancellor of the Tangle if you want it as a mana source or Chancellor of the Annex for protection.

One of the advantages of probe is that you can see what your opponent is playing before they scoop without playing a card. It's also useful if you can spot golgari charm, toxic deluge and other hate cards (although this advantage is vs nonblue decks as probes are usually replaced by SB cards).

I'm still not sure because the Chancellors do nothing if you plan on grinding passed turn 1, which I normally do g2 and g3. I suppose it can be sided out for swarms (only if your opponent isnt playing bolts). Swarm is horrible vs bolt decks (RUG, UWR...). I always replace seething song with 4 carpets g2 and g3 as well.

[Bosaapje]

It also stops Turn 1 discard if you're on the draw. The issue with probe is that while you have a high percentage of getting another mana source with it, you still have the chance of bricking and hitting another win con which you don't need. Sometimes keeping a hand based on "if my probe hits a mana source I can go off" is a problem. Note that hands with mana+probes are always a mulligan. Even hands with wincon+mana+probe but no turn 1 mana source is also a mulligan. I think it should be either Chancellor of the Tangle if you want it as a mana source or Chancellor of the Annex for protection.

One of the advantages of probe is that you can see what your opponent is playing before they scoop without playing a card. It's also useful if you can spot golgari charm, toxic deluge and other hate cards (although this advantage is vs nonblue decks as probes are usually replaced by SB cards).

I'm still not sure because the Chancellors do nothing if you plan on grinding passed turn 1, which I normally do g2 and g3. I suppose it can be sided out for swarms (only if your opponent isnt playing bolts). Swarm is horrible vs bolt decks (RUG, UWR...). I always replace seething song with 4 carpets g2 and g3 as well.

So the real question is: "Is the information that you see with Probe better than the counterspell that the Chancellor generates.". Probe does draw you a card and while that's good it's not why you want to run it in this deck if we're talking about Chancellor vs Probe. I think that the Chancellor is better than Probe at the moment. As you said, it also protects against discard and while it sucks if you draw it on turn 2 it's not as bad as hands that aren't playable because the opponent has answers to your first spell.

[Blastoderm]

So the real question is: "Is the information that you see with Probe better than the counterspell that the Chancellor generates.". Probe does draw you a card and while that's good it's not why you want to run it in this deck if we're talking about Chancellor vs Probe. I think that the Chancellor is better than Probe at the moment. As you said, it also protects against discard and while it sucks if you draw it on turn 2 it's not as bad as hands that aren't playable because the opponent has answers to your first spell.

After goldfishing a ~50 hands I came to realize it was awkward to have Chancellor in your hand even if it provides a counterspell (especially on mulligans). The draw that probe provides to obtain another mana source is quite important even though you can brick and hit a business spell instead. I'll stick with playing Probe for now...

[Trall]

Just play probe, really.

For those who have forgotten : Study about Belcher (trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Still up to date I guess :)

[cdnza]

Hey everyone,

I've been playing Doomsday and ANT lately but want to play something more ~exciting~ so want to try out belcher for a bit. I have all the maindeck cards that are typically played already, but wondered if anyone could suggest what sideboards typically look like now. I'm assuming Xantids, Carpets, and Wish targets?

I'll appreciate anyone who can post their board (also your maindeck if you have some spicy technology :D)

[Blastoderm]

Hey everyone,

I've been playing Doomsday and ANT lately but want to play something more ~exciting~ so want to try out belcher for a bit. I have all the maindeck cards that are typically played already, but wondered if anyone could suggest what sideboards typically look like now. I'm assuming Xantids, Carpets, and Wish targets?

I'll appreciate anyone who can post their board (also your maindeck if you have some spicy technology :D)

My mainboard is pretty typical.

4 Chrome mox (i like permanent mana especially g2 and g3)
4 Pyretic Ritual (instead of manamorphose because it's awful)

My sb:

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
1 Forest

1 Infernal Tutor (I kill so often with this it's not even funny... with the help of carpet of flowers.)
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns (this is bad, I'll probably cut it for something else...maybe Flameslash or Pyroclasm)
1 Telemins Performance (best target vs Storm, Belcher mirror, sneakshow, reanimator, Lands...)
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree

[Pomegrant]

My Belcher main deck is also standard but I have an interesting sideboard. In my opinion, I think that cards like Xantid Swam and Carpet of Flowers are really unreliable and that you just want to have the amount of turn one kills the deck can produce go up. I think having answers in a deck of this style doesn't really work because it gives your opponent time to actually be able to beat an Empty the Warrens. Also, I would rather have my answers stay in the sideboard so I can wish for them rather than having to reduce the consistency of the main deck.

1 Goblin War Strike
1 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Cave-In
1 Reforge the Soul
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Meltdown
1 Corrosive Gale

My sideboard is meant to maximize the amount of ways to be able to win through your Burning Wishes. I play Chancellor of the Annex as a way to fight Counter Magic if I'm on the play but mostly ignore it if on the draw. I think the draw sevens in the sideboard are actually really powerful as in combo matchups making Goblins might lose you the game so you can keep going off. Corrosive Gale is for the times in which I have a lot of mana and extra wishes but needed to build storm for free.

[cdnza]

Thanks for the replies guys. What I normally do with Wish sideboards is play with some blank cards when I'm playtesting so I can figure out what cards I would possibly want to wish for - I think I'll go with that strategy for a bit here too.

Would love to hear from others if anyone else has any experience on REB [or pyro or guttural] versus Swarms and Carpets versus Chancellors.

[Nina]

After playing belcher extensively for some time, i have some general questions for the "public".

1
Is the "Recross the Paths" Mike Augustine deck obsolote by now?
(edit: 1b what about wishless builds. not state of the art anymore?)
What is your take on it's advantages/disadvantages?
I have played both now and can't really decide.

2
Also what kind of hands do you not mulligan hoping to get there with draws?
How low on cards will you get with mulligans before "conceding" to the fate of bad luck and wait out the draws?

3
How does the "Whoopsie, all non-lands / Rogue Hermit" (http://www.eternalcentral.com/so-many-insane-plays-rogue-hermit-legacy-edition/) (the source thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25386-The-Rogue-Hermit&p=773070&viewfull=1#post773070)) deck compare to us performance wise (consitency hateability protection...)?
Is one just better than the other? (Hermit can run Pact of Negation and Cabal Therapy / Belcher doesn't die to fast gravehate...)

edit: also i found that "belcher in legacy 2013" pdf. thats valuable insight and sould be linked in the opening post.

[Blastoderm]

After playing belcher extensively for some time, i have some general questions for the "public".

1
Is the "Recross the Paths" Mike Augustine deck obsolote by now?
(edit: 1b what about wishless builds. not state of the art anymore?)
What is your take on it's advantages/disadvantages?
I have played both now and can't really decide.

2
Also what kind of hands do you not mulligan hoping to get there with draws?
How low on cards will you get with mulligans before "conceding" to the fate of bad luck and wait out the draws?

3
How does the "Whoopsie, all non-lands / Rogue Hermit" (http://www.eternalcentral.com/so-many-insane-plays-rogue-hermit-legacy-edition/) (the source thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25386-The-Rogue-Hermit&p=773070&viewfull=1#post773070)) deck compare to us performance wise (consitency hateability protection...)?
Is one just better than the other? (Hermit can run Pact of Negation and Cabal Therapy / Belcher doesn't die to fast gravehate...)

edit: also i found that "belcher in legacy 2013" pdf. thats valuable insight and sould be linked in the opening post.

1

Recross the paths is probably less consistent as you don't always go off turn 1. Most of the time you "doomsday" your deck and go off in the following turns which opens you up to spell pierce, daze and thalia.
The wishless version is worse because you must mulligan to a wincondition (you only play 8). You'll have more mulligans due to this than having mulligans due to too many wincons in the wish version.

2

I mulligan for wincondition. Gitaxian probe shouldn't decide wether you keep or not. If I had a hand of 4 probe 3 mana sources I would still mulligan. This is also why the wishless version is bad... street wraith is a dead card in the deck. So is manamorphose.

In the last ~3 tournaments I have never mulliganned to oblivion. I would probably stop at 4 cards if I did though. G2 and G3 I often keep hands with Xantid Swarm even with no win condition but ONLY against decks with no bolts. G2 and G3 I usually win more often on turn 5-6 and 80% of the time with wish-->infernal tutor-->belcher. 4 Carpet 4 Swarm 1 Forest really helps you play grindy games. It's not as hard as it seems.

3

It's a funny deck but autoloses to gravehate and is much less consistent especially with all the dead cards.

[Blastoderm]

My Belcher main deck is also standard but I have an interesting sideboard. In my opinion, I think that cards like Xantid Swam and Carpet of Flowers are really unreliable and that you just want to have the amount of turn one kills the deck can produce go up. I think having answers in a deck of this style doesn't really work because it gives your opponent time to actually be able to beat an Empty the Warrens. Also, I would rather have my answers stay in the sideboard so I can wish for them rather than having to reduce the consistency of the main deck.

1 Goblin War Strike
1 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Cave-In
1 Reforge the Soul
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Meltdown
1 Corrosive Gale

My sideboard is meant to maximize the amount of ways to be able to win through your Burning Wishes. I play Chancellor of the Annex as a way to fight Counter Magic if I'm on the play but mostly ignore it if on the draw. I think the draw sevens in the sideboard are actually really powerful as in combo matchups making Goblins might lose you the game so you can keep going off. Corrosive Gale is for the times in which I have a lot of mana and extra wishes but needed to build storm for free.

Once your opponent knows what you're on and also assuming you've won G1 he will mulligan to FoW or Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm. Having the Turn 1 kill basically means nothing in that case. However if you lose game 1 and you're starting game 2 it could be worth it not to side in your "blue hate" as only FoW stops you (not including golgari charm/pyroclasm). Playing Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers turn 1 on the draw however, is a much much safer play. Carpet also helps you wish for sideboard cards as it's a permanent source of "any color" mana. It could be worth it to actually only play carpets if you're on the play g2 as it could help you recover from getting your goblins killed by a sweeper. Carpet makes wish-->infernal tutor--> belcher extremly easy.

[Pomegrant]

Once your opponent knows what you're on and also assuming you've won G1 he will mulligan to FoW or Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm. Having the Turn 1 kill basically means nothing in that case. However if you lose game 1 and you're starting game 2 it could be worth it not to side in your "blue hate" as only FoW stops you (not including golgari charm/pyroclasm). Playing Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers turn 1 on the draw however, is a much much safer play. Carpet also helps you wish for sideboard cards as it's a permanent source of "any color" mana. It could be worth it to actually only play carpets if you're on the play g2 as it could help you recover from getting your goblins killed by a sweeper. Carpet makes wish-->infernal tutor--> belcher extremly easy.

My problem with Carpet of Flowers is that it only stops soft permission and if they counter Carpet itself, you're down mana and resources. It's the same as them countering your ritual in the first place. Also, I feel that when you slow down so much decks actually have a chance to kill you. I don't like Xantid Swarm because a lot of decks don't have better things to cut so they'll leave in swords and bolts and just kill the swarm. On top of this, you still need to redraw enough resources to be able to go off so you give them a lot of time to figure it out too. In general, I don't really like slowing the deck down because the advantage of this deck is being bale to kill quickly. In the UWR Stoneblade/Delver decks, their hate is mostly permanent based so on the draw I want to win before a Canonist or a Meddling Mage hits. Maybe because of this I want to be playing Chancellor of the Tangle as a way to beat soft permission and only losing to Force of Will.

[Blastoderm]

My problem with Carpet of Flowers is that it only stops soft permission and if they counter Carpet itself, you're down mana and resources. It's the same as them countering your ritual in the first place. Also, I feel that when you slow down so much decks actually have a chance to kill you. I don't like Xantid Swarm because a lot of decks don't have better things to cut so they'll leave in swords and bolts and just kill the swarm. On top of this, you still need to redraw enough resources to be able to go off so you give them a lot of time to figure it out too. In general, I don't really like slowing the deck down because the advantage of this deck is being bale to kill quickly. In the UWR Stoneblade/Delver decks, their hate is mostly permanent based so on the draw I want to win before a Canonist or a Meddling Mage hits. Maybe because of this I want to be playing Chancellor of the Tangle as a way to beat soft permission and only losing to Force of Will.

Chancellor instead of probe?

[Pomegrant]

Chancellor instead of probe?

I really like the probes, but perhaps it works better seeing as I'm trying to buy into this "all in" idea. I like that it helps produce green mana which is sometimes at a premium. I've sometimes felt that 4 chrome mox was too many and I wanted three, so maybe I can mess around with the numbers and see what sticks.

[Blastoderm]

I really like the probes, but perhaps it works better seeing as I'm trying to buy into this "all in" idea. I like that it helps produce green mana which is sometimes at a premium. I've sometimes felt that 4 chrome mox was too many and I wanted three, so maybe I can mess around with the numbers and see what sticks.

Yea you can go down to 3 Chrome Mox for sure if you aren't planning on playing swarms/carpet sideboard. Only problem I see with chancellor is that it doesn't add storm. Sometimes spirit guide hands + empty the warrens are problematic. Chancellor will make those hands more common since he's essentially spirit guides #9-12.

Probe comes out after sideboard anyways. I also hope you're playing Pyretic Ritual instead of manamorphose!

I've been doing well in my postboard games with my 4 carpet 4 swarm 1 forest sideboard. But I'll be looking forward to your results! :)

[Pomegrant]

I didn't take into account how it would effect storm. That is a problem. I'll have to see how often this comes up as I've always felt this deck was more oriented to killing with Warrens anyway. A good amount of fair decks can figure out 10 goblins and anything less than that is usually a really bad.

No manamorphose!

I'm trying it on MTGO right now so hopefully I'll get a decent feel for how the cards work. I've been thinking that Belcher needs something to update it so maybe this will work out and if it doesn't, then no harm.

[cdnza]

Yea you can go down to 3 Chrome Mox for sure if you aren't planning on playing swarms/carpet sideboard. Only problem I see with chancellor is that it doesn't add storm. Sometimes spirit guide hands + empty the warrens are problematic. Chancellor will make those hands more common since he's essentially spirit guides #9-12.

Probe comes out after sideboard anyways. I also hope you're playing Pyretic Ritual instead of manamorphose!

I've been doing well in my postboard games with my 4 carpet 4 swarm 1 forest sideboard. But I'll be looking forward to your results! :)

What do you board out for the green board? I assumed the Probes and any Manamorphose you have (my list has one right now). Thinking about playing this deck for the first time at a small tournament on Sunday so am eager to learn from those with experience! Though if I show up and it looks like >50% blue decks I might just play ANT or TES instead...

[Blastoderm]

What do you board out for the green board? I assumed the Probes and any Manamorphose you have (my list has one right now). Thinking about playing this deck for the first time at a small tournament on Sunday so am eager to learn from those with experience! Though if I show up and it looks like >50% blue decks I might just play ANT or TES instead...

I play 0 manamorphose, 4 pyretic ritual.

I side out 4 probe, 4 seething song, 1 pyretic ritual for 4 swarm 4 carpet 1 forest

[cdnza]

OK dudes, today is the day of the first sanctioned Legacy tourney round here since I built this deck so I'm hoping to play it in a few hours. If the room looks to be full of blue decks I will probably switch to ANT or TES though. I think I'm going to try out the green board too.

My list is:
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Manamorphose
3 Chrome Mox

SB:
1 Forest
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reverent Silence
1 Telemin Performance
1 Meltdown
1 ??????

[Blastoderm]

OK dudes, today is the day of the first sanctioned Legacy tourney round here since I built this deck so I'm hoping to play it in a few hours. If the room looks to be full of blue decks I will probably switch to ANT or TES though. I think I'm going to try out the green board too.

My list is:
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Manamorphose
3 Chrome Mox

SB:
1 Forest
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reverent Silence
1 Telemin Performance
1 Meltdown
1 ??????

I think you want the 4th chrome mox for the green board. You should definitely play an Infernal Tutor in the board. I win 50%+ of my games with it g2 and g3. Maybe a Goblin Warstrike instead of pyroclasm? What do you plan on killing with it? Gaddock Teeg? To kill Thalia you'll need 6 mana. Maybe a flame slash instead? Instead of meltdown what about shattering spree? Costs 1 to kill cannonist, needle instead of 2-3.

[astormbrewing]

Haven't played this deck for over a year, but I'm going to rebuild it.

3 Burning Wish
3 Chrome Mox
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Land Grant
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Taiga
4 Tinder Wall

1 Cave-In
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flame Slash
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Pyroblast
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm

[zzregz]

Is it ok if i have no LED and stomping ground instead of taiga. I wanna play belcher on a budget...

[Pomegrant]

Is it ok if i have no LED and stomping ground instead of taiga. I wanna play belcher on a budget...

Stomping Ground doesn't matter.

The deck is not playable without LED.

[zzregz]

Stomping Ground doesn't matter.

The deck is not playable without LED.


Then why did sonny aparicio got to top 8 if its not playable without LED?


Check this:
http://mtgdecks.net/decks/view/77636

[wonderPreaux]

Then why did sonny aparicio got to top 8 if its not playable without LED?


Check this:
http://mtgdecks.net/decks/view/77636

Because it isn't impossible to win with a suboptimal deck, just less likely. Favorable variance doesn't excuse poor deck construction.
Is it possible to win with an ANT deck that has 0 Dark Ritual? sure. Is it is a good plan? no.

[Blastoderm]

So Belcher is 9-0 at GP Kyoto :)

[feline]

So Belcher is 9-0 at GP Kyoto :)

@#$%(P YES!!!!!! GO BELCHER!!!!! (Sorry this is one of my favorite decks, I love how crazy it is and how it can piss people off)

[chainedcurses]

So Belcher is 9-0 at GP Kyoto :)

Infinite Hype Train!!!! Who was it and how did this person finish?

[Tokugawa]

Infinite Hype Train!!!! Who was it and how did this person finish?

Shirakihara Ryuichi, finish at 49th with 11-4.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpkyo15/9-0-decklists-2015-04-18

[Blastoderm]

Shirakihara Ryuichi, finish at 49th with 11-4.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpkyo15/9-0-decklists-2015-04-18

Interesting list. Not a fan of +1 street wraith -1 Land Grand though.... also was never a fan of manamorphose but I see he at least puts it to good use in order to cast a discard spell after board.

[Ellomdian]

Shirakihara Ryuichi, finish at 49th with 11-4.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpkyo15/9-0-decklists-2015-04-18


Congrats on this guy's accomplishment, but man, 9-0, 2-4. Woo hoo variance curve snapping back around :(

[chainedcurses]

Well majority of day 2 was Delver decks. Probably has something to do with the x-4 on day 2. A belcher deck going 9-0 doesn't fail to be recognized


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[paeng4983]

Well majority of day 2 was Delver decks. Probably has something to do with the x-4 on day 2. A belcher deck going 9-0 doesn't fail to be recognized


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Truely, the element of surprise is with the belcher's side during day one. But on day two, he is already marked. but still, good job in bringing this to day two man!

[Jin Gitaxias]

I'm considering to pick this deck up, just because it's something else then the decks i usually play.
Is there a reason that noone plays the recross the paths version anymore?
Is there a consensus over the best main deck?

Thanks in advance.

[JPoJohnson]

1. The raw speed of belcher is definitely the reason to play it. Recross the paths is cheaper, but slower and still has the same weaknesses as 1-land belcher. Imo there isn't a strength that justify it over 1land Belcher.

2.
Joe Losset's thoughts on belcher:

http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/rebuilding-legacy-charbelcher/

[Rokkastut]

Hello,

1. Pyroclasm or Cave-In?

2. 3/1 split MD/SB or 4 MD Land Grant?

I try to read up on belcher but these two I am not sure about.

Also:

3. Has Carpet of Flowers 'replaced' Pyroblast in this build?

[Esper3k]

I'm also curious - is there a reason why people don't play Street Wraith any more? It seems like having 8 free cantrips would be bonkers.

[kombatkiwi]

I'm also curious - is there a reason why people don't play Street Wraith any more? It seems like having 8 free cantrips would be bonkers.

With Manamorphose/Probe/Wraith you could potentially have 12 (although I understand why you wouldn't consider Manamorphose 'free').

Land Grant, Ritual, Ritual, Ritual, Cantrip, Cantrip, Cantrip could be a turn 1 win or not do anything at all, and being able to mulligan accordingly increases your chances of winning more than being able to draw your 'power' cards more consistently.

This seems to be the prevailing philosophy, I'm not sure if it's more of a holistic view or if people have actually crunched the numbers.

[Rokkastut]

So... I played a GPT today. In the second game in the last round before cut (I would be in top if I won) I opened the following hand (on the play);

Chrome Mox
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Rite of Flames x 3
Burning Wish

I played mox(exiling desperate), rite, rite, rite, seething, wish (floating RRRR)

Checked my SB.... Could not fint my Empty the Warrens... Counted my SB... 14 cards... Fml!!!

Forgot to put the Empty the Warrens i wished for in game 1 back again...

[JPoJohnson]

I always shuffle my sideboard into my deck and count out 15 cards. Maybe a decent practice for you to prevent it next time. :p

[Rokkastut]

What are your thoughts on the sideboard?

I am always happy with the 4 Xantid Swarm, but this don't work against RUG Delver.

I have tried Pyroblast/Guttural Response (where I prefer Guttural since I can play if of ESG). Still I feel the matchup is terrible post sideboard (or on the draw)

Will try out the Koyoto-tech and add some discard, thinking about SB:

-1 ESG
-1 SSG
-2 Manamorphose
(-2 Desperate Ritual)

+2 Duress
+2 Thoughtseize
(+ 2 Street Wraith) (cycles of fodder for Chrome Mox)

Edit: My MD is identical to the 9-0 deck from Koyoto.

[Blastoderm]

What are your thoughts on the sideboard?

I am always happy with the 4 Xantid Swarm, but this don't work against RUG Delver.

I have tried Pyroblast/Guttural Response (where I prefer Guttural since I can play if of ESG). Still I feel the matchup is terrible post sideboard (or on the draw)

Will try out the Koyoto-tech and add some discard, thinking about SB:

-1 ESG
-1 SSG
-2 Manamorphose
(-2 Desperate Ritual)

+2 Duress
+2 Thoughtseize
(+ 2 Street Wraith) (cycles of fodder for Chrome Mox)

Edit: My MD is identical to the 9-0 deck from Koyoto.

Vs RUG I side in 4 Xantid Swarm 4 Carpet of Flowers 1 Forest and side out 4 Probe 4 Seething Song 1 Pyretic Ritual
Manamorphose is a bad card for the main. Play 4 Pyretic Ritual instead.

I don't think Discard is good... the black mana requirements are clunky to say the least. Sure Xantid Swarm gets bolted but I find it's a necessary card to play, especially considering Miracles and Omnitell are the decks to beat right now. The only other thing I can think of that beats multiple counterspells is Autumn's Veil. It's more effective than Pyroblast because you can lead with it and it stops multiple counterspells (not to mention Flusterstorm which sees tons of play now).

Carpet of Flowers is extremely useful at shutting down Daze and Spell pierce. It also really helps with the Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor for Belcher line which I find myself going for over 50% of the time g2 and g3.

[phazonmutant]

Is Day's Undoing worth considering in this deck? It seems absurd in the vintage mono-blue belcher list, maybe this list could be tweaked a bit to support the blue.

[Rokkastut]

Is Day's Undoing worth considering in this deck? It seems absurd in the vintage mono-blue belcher list, maybe this list could be tweaked a bit to support the blue.

I don't think so... but for Reset High Tide the case may be totally different.


Vs RUG I side in 4 Xantid Swarm 4 Carpet of Flowers 1 Forest and side out 4 Probe 4 Seething Song 1 Pyretic Ritual
Manamorphose is a bad card for the main. Play 4 Pyretic Ritual instead.

I don't think Discard is good... the black mana requirements are clunky to say the least. Sure Xantid Swarm gets bolted but I find it's a necessary card to play, especially considering Miracles and Omnitell are the decks to beat right now. The only other thing I can think of that beats multiple counterspells is Autumn's Veil. It's more effective than Pyroblast because you can lead with it and it stops multiple counterspells (not to mention Flusterstorm which sees tons of play now).

Carpet of Flowers is extremely useful at shutting down Daze and Spell pierce. It also really helps with the Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor for Belcher line which I find myself going for over 50% of the time g2 and g3.

Thank you :-) Could you please post your list MD/SB? Is it only against RUG you also side in the Carpets? Or any other matchups?

[Blastoderm]

I don't think so... but for Reset High Tide the case may be totally different.

Thank you :-) Could you please post your list MD/SB? Is it only against RUG you also side in the Carpets? Or any other matchups?

Howdy,

My list is pretty standard..minus the horribleness of manamorphose..

4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 LED
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

SB:
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Telemin Performance
1 Goblin War Strike (or past in flames or diminishing returns)

4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Forest

I side in carpet vs all blue matchups because they all have pierce, daze and flusterstorm.

[paeng4983]

lastest belcher to reached the Top 8

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=87260



4th at StarCityGames.com Invitational Qualifier on 6/27/2015
Belcher
Cody Sweeney

Creatures (12)

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
Lands (1)

1 Taiga
Spells (47)

2 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Manamorphose
3 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
Sideboard

1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Goblin Welder
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Chain Lightning
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Living Wish
1 Reanimate
1 Reverent Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize

[Rokkastut]

Very interesting list!!

Living Wish tech seems absurd, wonder how it worked out.

[paeng4983]

Very interesting list!!

Living Wish tech seems absurd, wonder how it worked out.

Most probably like this:

Burning Wish into Living Wish into Wurmcoil Engine, if it is burn or UR delver base decks.

or

Burning Wish into Living Wish into Thalia, vs combo decks.

[Rokkastut]

I played 6 rounds today and got 2nd in Legacy League #7

3 Pyretic Ritual
2 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 LED
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Chrome Mox
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

SB:
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Pyroclasm
3 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Forest

R1 - Jund, he did not have discard so I made alot of Goblins for the win game 1 and Belcher game 2.
2-0 1-0

R2 - Gilded Drake combo with counters and stifle. Lost game 1 due to maindeck hate (read Stifle), won game 2 of a Xantid Swarm. Game 3 was grindy, I was one turn away from winning but could not due to time (he was at 1 life and I had 10 Goblins...)
1-1-1 1-0-1

R3 - Sneak and Show. Game 1 he played Show and Tell and put a Griselbrand into play while I put my Charbelcher into play (with Taiga as only other permanent). He passes the turn... I played a Lotus Petal, he farted and did not counter, I exiled SSG and activated Belcher for the win. Game 2 he Show and Telled, put an Emrakul into play while I put my Charbelcher into play (with a Tinderwall and Mox in play). I activated, he Echoing Truth in response, I hit Forest after 4 cards so no win there... next turn I top decked LED and had 4 mana for the Belcher.
2-0 2-0-1

R4 - Ooops, all spells. I won the dice roll. Turn 1 win of a sick Dininishing Returns hand followed by 22 Goblins and War Strike. Game two he did not have the win, so I Belched him on turn 1.
2-0
3-0-1

Semi - Stoneblade. I did not have a counter. Charbelcher got me there. Game 2 was the most grindy match I have ever played with Belcher. I had Taiga in play and Forest in Library. He had Leyline of Sancity in play. But I could activate Belcher each turn (almost) to kill Stoneforge and germ token and stack my library, very cool, but difficult. Goblins got me there for the win through CB.
2-0
4-0-1

Finals - Mentor Miracles. Force with backup game 1. I had Xantid game 2 but Countertop stopped me.
0-2
4-1-1

Perhaps I want to play 4 Chrome Mox instead, other than that the deck was fine. (Perhaps change Infernal Tutor for a Tendrils of Agony because Infernal is too mana intensive).

[Stangg]

What do you people think about Dark Petition being a possible Sideboard option vs. Infernal Tutor?

[Gollus]

R2 - Gilded Drake combo with counters and stifle. Lost game 1 due to maindeck hate (read Stifle), won game 2 of a Xantid Swarm. Game 3 was grindy, I was one turn away from winning but could not due to time (he was at 1 life and I had 10 Goblins...)
1-1-1 1-0-1


Whats the Gilded Drake Combo? You've awaken my interest?

[Rokkastut]

What do you people think about Dark Petition being a possible Sideboard option vs. Infernal Tutor?

Seems like the same, perhaps only better since you don't need hellbent.

@Gollus; it looked like RUG Delver to start with, Stifle/Daze etc... but played Gilded Drake and other steal stuff and stuff to sacrifice creatures, bounce etc... Diamond Valley?! Kinda strange

[Blastoderm]

Congrats Rokkastrut! As you mentioned, the 4th Chrome Mox is very helpful, especially G2 and G3 as a permanent mana source (you have a lot of green permanents to cast). I would only consider going down to 3 Chrome Mox if Pyroblast was in my sideboard. But even then, I wouldn't know what to replace it with...

From your report, it looks like you sided in a forest vs sneak/show. I usually only bring it in vs blue wasteland decks.

The infernal tutor isn't really as mana intensive as you think. I win so many games with it due to carpet of flowers or multiple LEDs. It seems more difficult to get to 9 or 10 storm (especially if you're playing Chrome Moxes and cut Probes after SB). As for the SB, what is Pyroclasm for? Mentor/Young Pyro? If your opponent is making that many tokens, using a bunch of resources and a business card (burning wish) will lose you the game anyways. In situations like this i like infernal tutor for Belcher. If you're deadset on using a sweeper though, Cave-In is better. I'm not sure what your meta is but Telemin Performance is an auto-win vs storm and lands (it mills them). It also gets you a bomb vs sneak/show. Especially good in matchups where empty just isn't that good or fast enough. At this point we're just nitpicking though, the deck does what it does consistently and well :) Congrats again!

[Rokkastut]

Thanks Blastoderm!

For next tournament I will do;
MD: -2 Manamorphose, +1 Pyretic Ritual, +1 Chrome Mox (my 8 Manamorphoses are in USA for signatures)
SB: -1 Pyroclasm, +1 Telemin Performance (easy since both my Pyroclasm and Cave-In are in London and Madrid for signatures)
I'll keep Infernal in the SB

Play: Only Forest against Blue Wasteland decks.

Thank you for feedback, really helps :-)

[ahg113]

Congrats Rokkastrut! As you mentioned, the 4th Chrome Mox is very helpful, especially G2 and G3 as a permanent mana source (you have a lot of green permanents to cast). I would only consider going down to 3 Chrome Mox if Pyroblast was in my sideboard. But even then, I wouldn't know what to replace it with...

From your report, it looks like you sided in a forest vs sneak/show. I usually only bring it in vs blue wasteland decks.

The infernal tutor isn't really as mana intensive as you think. I win so many games with it due to carpet of flowers or multiple LEDs. It seems more difficult to get to 9 or 10 storm (especially if you're playing Chrome Moxes and cut Probes after SB). As for the SB, what is Pyroclasm for? Mentor/Young Pyro? If your opponent is making that many tokens, using a bunch of resources and a business card (burning wish) will lose you the game anyways. In situations like this i like infernal tutor for Belcher. If you're deadset on using a sweeper though, Cave-In is better. I'm not sure what your meta is but Telemin Performance is an auto-win vs storm and lands (it mills them). It also gets you a bomb vs sneak/show. Especially good in matchups where empty just isn't that good or fast enough. At this point we're just nitpicking though, the deck does what it does consistently and well :) Congrats again!

+1 for Telemin Performance. It's a very cute and fun card. Almost won me a game vs. Miracles (older version), but the guy had sb'd in Meddling Mages, so... I got about 2/3rd's his deck, and a 2/2 wizard...

[Rokkastut]

Tournament report,

So it was that time a month again; Legacy. I had sleeved up the same as last except cutting Manamorphose and maxing up on Pyretic and Chrome Mox. I have two Telemin Performance but I could not find them sp played with Pyroclasm in the SB instead.

R1 - Death and Taxes
I win the dieroll and goes t1 kill with Belcher. In game two I play Belcher on turn 1, he plays a Phyrexian Revoker. I play Burning Wish on turn 2 (for Shattering Spree) he follows up with Canonist and Thalia... kinda interesting but not much he could do when I destroys his artifact creatures and Belcher for the win.
2-0 2-0

R2 - Omnitell
I win the dieroll and opens;
Land Grant
Tinder Wall
Lions Eye Diamond
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Burning Wish x 2

I play Land Grant, Tinder Wall, Desperate, Seething (5 red floating) play LED, Burning Wish (don't crack LED in response... ) avsolute brainfart! I play second Burning Wish, crack LED in response for blue. Don't make 16 Goblins (brainfart again!) but fins Diminishing Returns... ends up with nothing and a loss. I win game 2 of turn 1 Belcher and game 3 goes to time.
1-1-1 1-0-1

R3 - Mentor Miracles
Turn 1 win with Belcher. Then second game he had alot of interraction and I could do nothing (even with Xantid and Carpet), before turn 1 win with Belcher again in the last game. SB: -4 Seething Song, +3 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Xantid Swarm (because of Swords and Terminus, but perhaps 4 Xantid is the right thing to do)
2-1 2-0-1

R4 - Jund
Turn 1 Belcher, for the 1000000 time today :-) In game two he had alot of discard for my business and also a fast clock. In the last game he played 8 Thoughtseize so I only needed a few Goblins for the win.
2-1 3-0-1

Semifinals - MUD
G1 - Damn you Trinisphere!
G2 - Turn 1 Belcher (but missing 1 mana to activate), then Damn you Trinisphere again!

All in all happy with the results today, Trinisphere is impossible. Will keep my list as it is, only remove the Pyroclasm in the SB for Telemin when I find it.

[Blastoderm]

Tournament report,

So it was that time a month again; Legacy. I had sleeved up the same as last except cutting Manamorphose and maxing up on Pyretic and Chrome Mox. I have two Telemin Performance but I could not find them sp played with Pyroclasm in the SB instead.

R1 - Death and Taxes
I win the dieroll and goes t1 kill with Belcher. In game two I play Belcher on turn 1, he plays a Phyrexian Revoker. I play Burning Wish on turn 2 (for Shattering Spree) he follows up with Canonist and Thalia... kinda interesting but not much he could do when I destroys his artifact creatures and Belcher for the win.
2-0 2-0

R2 - Omnitell
I win the dieroll and opens;
Land Grant
Tinder Wall
Lions Eye Diamond
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Burning Wish x 2

I play Land Grant, Tinder Wall, Desperate, Seething (5 red floating) play LED, Burning Wish (don't crack LED in response... ) avsolute brainfart! I play second Burning Wish, crack LED in response for blue. Don't make 16 Goblins (brainfart again!) but fins Diminishing Returns... ends up with nothing and a loss. I win game 2 of turn 1 Belcher and game 3 goes to time.
1-1-1 1-0-1

R3 - Mentor Miracles
Turn 1 win with Belcher. Then second game he had alot of interraction and I could do nothing (even with Xantid and Carpet), before turn 1 win with Belcher again in the last game. SB: -4 Seething Song, +3 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Xantid Swarm (because of Swords and Terminus, but perhaps 4 Xantid is the right thing to do)
2-1 2-0-1

R4 - Jund
Turn 1 Belcher, for the 1000000 time today :-) In game two he had alot of discard for my business and also a fast clock. In the last game he played 8 Thoughtseize so I only needed a few Goblins for the win.
2-1 3-0-1

Semifinals - MUD
G1 - Damn you Trinisphere!
G2 - Turn 1 Belcher (but missing 1 mana to activate), then Damn you Trinisphere again!

All in all happy with the results today, Trinisphere is impossible. Will keep my list as it is, only remove the Pyroclasm in the SB for Telemin when I find it.

Sweet! I played legacy today too but was on storm. There was a Belcher player in the room who went 4-1 :)
Vs Omnitell Telemin would have won you the game :(
I'm not entirely sure about carpet vs Miracles. They don't play much daze or spell pierce but hard counters. A resolved counterbalance also destroys you so sitting on Carpet like you do vs Delver decks could be risky. I would probably just stick with 4 Xantid Swarm and cut Probes.

[JPoJohnson]

Fun time, nice work man! (:


I'm always scared to bring my Belcher to a tournament - I'm always thinking that there's always too much blue nowadays!

[Maikhell]

Yea, right, Summoner's Pact to Wild Cantor into Day's Undoing seems totally synergistic, uh?

Edit: hahah, have you just deleted the post about Pact + DU?! Way to go!

[nudon]

I'm thinking with Day's Undoing, this deck can more reliably kill on turn 1/2. EtW typically takes 3 turns to seal the game. Have any of you tried testing this? Here's a quick sketch of what I had in mind.

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Tinder Wall
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose

3 Day's Undoing
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish

Sideboard
1 Day's Undoing
1 Empty the Warrens

Note: @Maikhell: Yeah, I had a brain fart and thought pact triggers were EoT. Whoops! Concept of chaining DU into Belcher stays intact though haha.

[Blastoderm]

I'm thinking with Day's Undoing, this deck can more reliably kill on turn 1/2. EtW typically takes 3 turns to seal the game. Have any of you tried testing this? Here's a quick sketch of what I had in mind.

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Tinder Wall
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose

3 Day's Undoing
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish

Sideboard
1 Day's Undoing
1 Empty the Warrens

Note: @Maikhell: Yeah, I had a brain fart and thought pact triggers were EoT. Whoops! Concept of chaining DU into Belcher stays intact though haha.

How does this kill more reliably on turn 1? Days Undoing ends your turn. It also helps your opponent draw into Force of Will or any other form of disruption (even discard is turned on). One of Belcher's strengths is that it has very consistent draws while also forcing your opponent to mulligan into disruption. If you want to rely more on Belcher and less on EtW then I suggest you look at the Recross the Paths version which functions similarly to Doomsday.

I agree that EtW doesn't always win you the game due to faster combo decks (show and tell, sometimes elves, ANT, reanimator) or your opponent's two-of golgari charm happened to be in their opening hand. However, I'm pretty sure you'll end up having more losses due to Day's Undoing giving your opponent stuff he needs to combo or disrupt you than you would get with EtW not being good enough. I suggest to sticking with Infernal tutor in the SB to grab Belcher. Also, you're forced to play manamorphose -- which is horrible.

[Kayds]

3 Chrome Mox


This may or may not be the deck for days undoing, but days undoing's best friend is chrome mox! max that thing out! Theoretically if your opponent holds up their counters in fear (magical christmasland), but lets you resolve three days undoings in a row you can accumulate a lot of permanent mana sources.

I played a vintage deck called Steel City Vault built around abusing draw-7s and the plan is pretty much get alot of permanents into play, draw 7, and now we both have 7 in hand but i have all these permanents (some of which are game-ending timevault/key)

[JPoJohnson]

Nah.

This blue spell is not what Belcher wants.

[Namida]

For those of you who are playing Gitaxian Probe, do you feel that you're actually benefiting from the information you get from a Probe? I've been adamantly against Probe in decks like this; I think that your opening hand decision is the most important decision you make most games, and playing cards that obscure your opening hand from you seems like a mistake in that case. Furthermore, to me the "56-card deck" aspect is basically focusing on rebuilding before you've even tried to go off. In this way, I just assumed that Probe was kind of a bandwagon thing because I believed that the only reason to play it would be if the information you gained would be useful, and that the deck is too linear to often capitalize on the information. But then I played a few events with Probe in my deck. What I found was if my opponents knew that I knew what they were holding, they would basically take any bait I could set up and they'd just shoot all of their permission into the ground against me. More or less, Probe improved my win rate because it scared the shit out of weaker players. I don't know if I can really chalk this up to Probe actually being a good card, so I want to know what your experiences are.

[Rokkastut]

@Probe;

I like it; but it is (Along with Seething Song and Pyretic Ritual) the card I sideboard out the most.

Played in a tournament on sunday and t4 (hattrick with Belcher), same decklist as always but Carpet of Flowers is for signing so 2 REB and 1 Guttural Response instead.

R1 - Show and Tell
G1 - I played Telemin Performance, stealing his Emrakul, lol.
G2 - He played S&T, In put Belcher in play, he drew 14 cards but not an answer.
2-0

R2 - Death and Taxes
Easy 2-0 (shitload of Goblins both games)

R3 - MUD
I hate Trinisphere. I lost the dieroll, t1 win is not a t1 win against Trinisphere.
1-2

R4 - Death and Taxes
Easy 2-0 (same as last match against D&T)

T4 - RUG
Daze, Spell Pierce, Force of Will, Stifle... I really missed Carpet of Flowers in the SB against soft counters. Difficult matchup as always, but 3 Carpets is needed, much better than REB.

[Blastoderm]

@Probe;

I like it; but it is (Along with Seething Song and Pyretic Ritual) the card I sideboard out the most.

Played in a tournament on sunday and t4 (hattrick with Belcher), same decklist as always but Carpet of Flowers is for signing so 2 REB and 1 Guttural Response instead.

R1 - Show and Tell
G1 - I played Telemin Performance, stealing his Emrakul, lol.
G2 - He played S&T, In put Belcher in play, he drew 14 cards but not an answer.
2-0

R2 - Death and Taxes
Easy 2-0 (shitload of Goblins both games)

R3 - MUD
I hate Trinisphere. I lost the dieroll, t1 win is not a t1 win against Trinisphere.
1-2

R4 - Death and Taxes
Easy 2-0 (same as last match against D&T)

T4 - RUG
Daze, Spell Pierce, Force of Will, Stifle... I really missed Carpet of Flowers in the SB against soft counters. Difficult matchup as always, but 3 Carpets is needed, much better than REB.

Yea probe is quite weak. For sideboarding I usually do -4 Probe -4 Seething Song +4 Xantid Swarm +4 Carpet of Flowers. Carpet also helps those Wish--> Telemin Performance or Wish--> Infernal Tutor--> Belcher lines of play.

Edit:

Here's my post-DTT banning sb. I decided to include some blasts because Stifle is like Force of Will 5-8 if you're on the draw.

1 Telemin Performance
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pyroblast
1 Forest

Vs non-wasteland blue decks:
-4 Probe -4 Seething Song
+4 Xantid Swarm +3 Carpet of Flowers +1 Pyroblast

VS wasteland blue decks without stifle:
-4 Probe -4 Seething Song -1 Pyretic Ritual
+4 Xantid Swarm +3 Carpet of Flowers +1 Forest +1 Pyroblast

On the Draw VS wasteland blue decks with stifle:
-4 Probe -4 Seething Song -2 Pyretic Ritual
+4 Xantid Swarm +3 Carpet of Flowers +1 Forest +2 Pyroblast

[Ozymandias]

For those of you who are playing Gitaxian Probe, do you feel that you're actually benefiting from the information you get from a Probe? I've been adamantly against Probe in decks like this; I think that your opening hand decision is the most important decision you make most games, and playing cards that obscure your opening hand from you seems like a mistake in that case. Furthermore, to me the "56-card deck" aspect is basically focusing on rebuilding before you've even tried to go off. In this way, I just assumed that Probe was kind of a bandwagon thing because I believed that the only reason to play it would be if the information you gained would be useful, and that the deck is too linear to often capitalize on the information. But then I played a few events with Probe in my deck. What I found was if my opponents knew that I knew what they were holding, they would basically take any bait I could set up and they'd just shoot all of their permission into the ground against me. More or less, Probe improved my win rate because it scared the shit out of weaker players. I don't know if I can really chalk this up to Probe actually being a good card, so I want to know what your experiences are.

I've been very happy with Probe. It lets me know what my opponent's outs are and play accordingly. It also gives me a clue if I should SB game 2. I wouldn't play it if it didn't also increment the storm count, though. I could definitely see cutting 1 for another ritual effect, though.

[JPoJohnson]

Have you ever been in a situation where you could either get 8 gobbos or go for the win? Knowing whether they have FoW or Fluster in their hand makes a difference. I also like that it makes our deck feel smaller at the cost of a few life since we're going to try and go off early in the vast majority of games.

[Blastoderm]

Have you ever been in a situation where you could either get 8 gobbos or go for the win? Knowing whether they have FoW or Fluster in their hand makes a difference. I also like that it makes our deck feel smaller at the cost of a few life since we're going to try and go off early in the vast majority of games.

By "go for the win" you mean play a Belcher? It really depends on how your opponent reacts. Usually they force the ritual that would get you to 3/4 mana since FoW is bad vs empty. I imagine the same thing would apply to flusterstorm being bad vs Belcher. Therefore they would flusterthe same mana source.

Probe is the most cuttable spell after sb. Shrinking the deck by a card or two is irrelevant since you mulligan to a hand with either a wish, empty or Belcher. Keeping a hand with 5 mana sources and 2 probes is an auto-mulligan. Same case goes for manamorphose but it's far worse (pyretic ritual is strictly better). If you keep hands with 4 mana sources 2 manamorphose 1 gitaxian probe you should rethink how you play this deck -- and also remove manamorphose.

[Rokkastut]

Just saw the top8 list from Danish Legacy Masters. Belcher with Taiga+Bayou, 4 Manamorphose, 4 Dark Ritual!? And 1 Infernal Tutor main... I like it.

[caprino]

Blastoderm,I ask Your List main deck?

[Blastoderm]

Blastoderm,I ask Your List main deck?

4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

Sideboarding is a couple posts up.

[caprino]

4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

Sideboarding is a couple posts up.

infect sneak attack against miracles and how you use the side?
carpet of flowers you use it even when you start?

[onemancannon]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=98015

I need some help understanding this SB. I just can't wrap my head around how to or when to side.

On a different note, has anyone considered crash of tentacles ? There has been some talk among the TES community as a better wish target rather than targeted removal. Initially it feels slow and open to large amounts of removal, but that's without testing.

[PhantomLotus]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=98015

I need some help understanding this SB. I just can't wrap my head around how to or when to side.

On a different note, has anyone considered crash of tentacles ? There has been some talk among the TES community as a better wish target rather than targeted removal. Initially it feels slow and open to large amounts of removal, but that's without testing.

The 3x carpet and (I imagine) 2x Dromoka + Temple Garden come in against blue decks, with the third as a Living Wish target. The Welder is a Living Wish target, and everything else is a BWish target.

Crush might work out in TES, etc. but Belcher is a 1st turn deck. We win before their permanents matter, or we lose. I don't see this card being better than Empty for 8+ goblins since the 8/8 token is so vulnerable.

[Demonic_Attorney]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=98015

I need some help understanding this SB. I just can't wrap my head around how to or when to side.

On a different note, has anyone considered crash of tentacles ? There has been some talk among the TES community as a better wish target rather than targeted removal. Initially it feels slow and open to large amounts of removal, but that's without testing.

I steadfastly beleive that playing Dragonlord Dromoka in the sideboard is significantly worse than playing Xantid Swarm. I see his logic for doing it; however, it is not prudent strategy and in my view, it effectively undermines the primary objctive of this deck, which is speed and consistent opening hands.

[PhantomLotus]

I took the following list to the Legacy Showdown this past Saturday at GP Houston:

4 LED
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
1 Sylvan Library
1 Taiga
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
1 Forest
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Telemin Performance
1 Diminishing Returns

Round 1 - Joshua with Merfolk

G1 - I open a hand with Land Grant, Tinder Wall, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, and Charbelcher. Turn 1 Belcher and activate. He doesn't have the Force.

I have no idea what he's playing, so I don't sideboard.

G2 - I open Git. Probe, Land Grant, Rite of Flame, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Chrome Mox, and Empty the Warrens. He plays Island into Pithing Needle, naming Charbelcher - okay by me! On my T1 I Probe, revealing some merfolk, Aether Vial, Flusterstorm, Island, Mutavault. I draw Seething Song off of the Probe, play out my hand (no imprint on the Mox) and empty for 16 goblins. They get there. Afterward, my opponent tells me that he wasn't aware that Belcher played Empty maindeck.

(1-0)

Round 2 - Scott-Alan with Burn

G1 - I open Petal, Petal, Mox, D. Ritual, Seething Song, Empty, LED. Play out LED, Petal, Petal, Mox (imprint D.Ritual) ->Seething Song, Empty for 12 goblins. He suspends Rift Bolt T1 and then Chain Lightnings me T2 before dying to goblins.

No sideboarding necessary.

G2- I open Land Grant, ESG, D. Ritual, SSong, Burning Wish, SSGx2. His T1, he Git.Probes, fetches, plays Monastery Swiftspear, Git.Probes again, attacks me to 18, and then passes. My T1 I make 10 goblins. Risky, but I should get there or make him spend burn on my tokens while I rebuild. His T2 he plays Goblin Guide, and passes. I attack him to 7 the next turn, losing 2 goblins in the process. His T3 he bolts a goblin, plays Eidolon of the Great Revel and passes. Oof, there goes my backup plan to re-storm, and I only have 7 goblins left to his 3 creatures. My T3 I attack him to 3, losing 3 goblins in the process. I play Petal, and use the Taiga and one SSG to cast the other SSG from my hand, dropping me to 14 from Eidolon triggers. I now have 4 goblins and SSG to his 3 critters. He sees the writing on the wall and elects to fetch and then die to his own Eidolon trigger rather than have my motley crew finish him.

(2-0)

Round 3 - Tom with Miracles

Ugh.

G1 - I don't have many notes because I got disgusted when it became apparent that he was on Miracles. I mull to a weak hand that can make a few goblins with one more mana source and decide to keep rather than risk going to 5. He plays a fetch into Tundra on T1, and I draw and pass. On his T2, he plays Counterbalance. On my T2, I draw what I need and make 8 goblins through his blind CB flip. His T3 he STP one goblin, and passes. My T3 I attack him to 12 and pass. He Brainstorms EOT and flips Terminus on his turn, then eventually gets there with Clique and Mentor beats.

+4 Carpet, +4 X.Swarm, -4 Probe, -4 SSong

G2 - I don't open with a Swarm, but I have the T1 belch so I go for it. He has Force, and I eventually lose to Mentor beats after Counterbalance lock.

(2-1)

Round 4 - Warren with Miracles.

I accidentally flip a Taiga while shuffling. The jig is up (or so I thought).

G1 - I open Taiga, Petal, Petal, D.Ritual, P.Ritual, Belcher, BWish, and keep. T1, he cracks a fetch for Tundra. Ugh. I play out my hand (except the Wish) and make Charbelcher, leaving one Petal uncracked. He doesn't have Force. I draw ESG the next turn and belch for a million. Turns out he put me on Lands after seeing the Taiga.

+4 Carpet, +4 X.Swarm, -4 Probe, -4 SSong

G2 - This time he has the Force. I die to Angel tokens.

G3 - More countermagic, and I eventually die to Jace ultimate.

(2-2)

Round 5 - Soren with 4-color Control

G1 - I open Rite of Flame x2, Mox, Burning Wish x2, ESG, and Belcher. T1 I play Mox (imprint BWish), Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Belcher, and pass the turn. His turn he plays Creeping Tar Pit and passes. T2 I draw and play Land Grant, fetch Taiga, exile ESG and belch for my whole library.

+4 Carpet, +4 X.Swarm, -4 Probe, -4 SSong

G2 - He keeps and I mull to 6, keeping a hand with several win conditions but not enough mana. I figure that more wincons is better than fewer wincons if I have to fight through counters. Maybe Belcher or a countermagic-fueled Empty can get there? That turns out not to be the case after I miscount mana (counted an SSG as +1 when I actually needed to imprint it on a Mox) and am forced to just put Diminishing Returns in my hand after a BWish. Then I get double-Thoughtseized and lastly FoW'ed on my last wincon before I die to Mentor beats.

-4 Carpet, +4 Probe. He doesn't actually have many islands since he's 4C control with Tarpits, and he now knows to fetch around them.

G3 - I probe and see Force x2, Brainstorm x2, and Flusterstorm plus a land and something else. I halfheartedly play the game out, but he Abrupt Decays a Xantid Swarm that I play and then gets Jitte online, still holding FoWx2 and Flusterstorm. I scoop.

(2-3)

Round 6 - no show

(3-3)

Round 7 - Zachry with Burn

Zachry sat next to me when I demolished the Merfolk player, so he wasn't too happy to see me.

G1 - He wins the die roll. I open ESG, T.Wall, Rite of Flame x2, SSongx2, BWish. T1, he Chain Lightnings me and passes. I draw Probe and make 16 goblins. He draws for the turn and scoops.

No sideboard.

G2 - I open Probe x2, Mox, Land Grant, T.Wall, LED, Belcher. He plays a fetch and passes. I draw SSG and play Mox (imprint Probe), LG->Taiga, play and sac T.Wall, exile SSG, play Belcher, play LED, and crack LED to activate Belcher.

(4-3), which was good enough for 250 prize tickets (est. value $50 - $75 depending on what you pick).

I was less than impressed with the Xantid Swarms, and wished they were Autumn's Veil or Pyroblast on several occasions. I think the better players expect them and leave in their removal. I found myself wondering if Defense Grid could be worth it? I never got to play the Sylvan Library, but it seemed like it could be good.

[Water_Wizard]

The 3x carpet and (I imagine) 2x Dromoka + Temple Garden come in against blue decks, with the third as a Living Wish target. The Welder is a Living Wish target, and everything else is a BWish target.


Agreed with everything you said expect I think the Living Wish is a Burning Wish target.

[Zooligan]

I never got to play the Sylvan Library, but it seemed like it could be good.

New Legacy player here. Under what scenarios would you expect SL to be good?

[Blastoderm]

New Legacy player here. Under what scenarios would you expect SL to be good?

The real answer is: never.

[Zooligan]

The real answer is: never.

Heh. OK.

Do you still recommend Xantid in the SB vs Guttural Response/Pyroblast or Autumn's Veil? How do G2/3 with Xantid optimally play out?

[Blastoderm]

Heh. OK.

Do you still recommend Xantid in the SB vs Guttural Response/Pyroblast or Autumn's Veil? How do G2/3 with Xantid optimally play out?

I still recommend Xantid Swarm. It's very necessary even if your opponent is keeping in removal. G2/G3 will usually be: xantid or carpet + pass the turn.

Pyroblast/Guttural Response/Autumn's Veil are fine but it really depends on what you expect.

Autumn's Veil is good vs Flusterstorm but Pyroblasts are not.
Blasts are good vs stifle but autumn's veil is not.
Both do nothing vs daze.

Carpet is great vs pierce and daze and also to speed up recovery after a force of will thwarts your plans. It's also good if your opponent stifles your belcher activation as it's easier to try again next turn.

Since stifle is a 4-of in most delver lists, and flusterstorm is usually a 2-of, I would be more inclined to have guttural response in my sideboard.

My sideboard would be the following:

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pyroblast

1 Telemin Performance
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor

[Zooligan]

Not a fan of the single Forest sb for Wasteland decks?

[Blastoderm]

Not a fan of the single Forest sb for Wasteland decks?

I don't think it's needed anymore unless your meta is really infested with Delver. You're not siding in the forest against non-blue wasteland decks. With Delver being surprisingly rare in the current meta, I think I'll try a set of Guttural Response instead of Carpet.

[caprino]

I don't think it's needed anymore unless your meta is really infested with Delver. You're not siding in the forest against non-blue wasteland decks. With Delver being surprisingly rare in the current meta, I think I'll try a set of Guttural Response instead of Carpet.
Main deck you list?

[Ronald Deuce]

Hello, everybody!

I'm a new player of this deck, and I'm interested in some advice. Took this deck out for its maiden voyage on Sunday for three rounds at the local. Went 2-1 (well, my opponent and I drew for store credit, but we played it out anyway for funsies). Here's what I was running:

4x Charbelcher
4x Burning Wish
3x Empty

4x LED
4x Chrome Mox
4x Petal

4x ESG
4x SSG
4x Tinder Wall

4x Land Grant
4x Seething Song
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
3x Pyretic Ritual
3x Gitaxian Probe
2x Manamorphose

1x Taiga

Sideboard:
4x Xantid Swarm
2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Pyroblast
1x Shattering Spree
1x Hull Breach
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Army of the Damned
1x Ten Drills

Quick report, warts and all (my memory's not too great):
R1: Merfolk (2-1)
G1: Emptied for a whole mess of goblins (I think 20) on turn 1. He couldn't stop it. (N.B.: In retrospect I think I could've pulled a Tendrils here, but I don't remember offhand.)
G2: I had a solid hand with backup business but couldn't get from 1 to 2 mana to start the combo. Didn't find anything for about 5 turns, so he beat me down.
G3: Another quick Empty.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. The opponent said that he'd just put the deck together and was still experimenting, and I think he probably could've mulliganed a bit better. A win's a win, though, and he was a good sport. Didn't see Force all game, but I'm not counting on having such luck in the future.

R2: Eldrazi MUD (2-0)
G1: Kept a hand with a lot of artifact mana but no business. He played Chalice on 1(?) on his first turn, so I opened by dropping three Petals and an LED. He didn't find an answer before I comboed.
G2: I kept a hand with some pretty solid cards, and he opened with two Chalices (0 and 1). I had Spirit Guides and 2-costed rituals to get around them, though. I comboed off with an Empty for 14, I think, and he tipped his hand afterward to reveal a Thorn that would've totally crushed me if he'd played it instead of the Chalice on 1.

I've been playing AnT for a while and some Dredge, too, and I've had a pretty rough set of battles against the colorless menace. Was interested in giving All Spells a try this week, seeing as it's been a while since I took it to a tournament, but I thought I'd take my newly acquired Taiga out for a spin. It's nice to see that the Golden Goblin Gun can get us there when Storm maybe (probably) wouldn't. Thorn is really tough for this deck, though. A Ratchet Bomb would've ruined my day here, as well, so it's something to anticipate in the future. I misplayed in G2, forgetting he had a Chalice; I could've cast War Strike for zero before Empty to get more mans, but I got caught up in the (basic) math and forgot that he had a Chalice to counter it.

R3: Sneak Attack/Show and Tell (Draw, but 1-2)
My memory of this matchup is shaky. I also played the opponent some more after the tournament, so I can't really give a good report here. I need to take better notes in the future. As I recall, I managed to combo twice, winning once, but running my goblins into Echoing Truth the second time (a goat show ensued, in which I sacrificed a Tinder Wall to hardcast ESG for beats; he was at 5, but he did his thing pretty quickly and I died). In two games he just did what his deck does and swung for 15 or 22 in the air. Annihilator is a really good mechanic. G-Brand was pretty ugly, finding Force in the top 14 to keep me off a Belcher in one game. IIRC, I could've made it if he'd gone for tentacles instead of horns. Pithing Needle also made an appearance, shutting me out of a game.

This match may have gone better if I'd had a bit more experience with my deck. I think there are some tricks we can pull to get an edge on them, especially if they go for Show and Tell rather than Sneak Attack. It's worth reiterating that in this matchup, if we've got a Belcher and an LED in hand, we should play out the LED turn 1 every game in the hopes that they just play Show and Tell, letting us drop a free Belcher through countermagic and fire it immediately. In one of the post-tourney games, this happened, though I comboed off of a mox, a petal, and Taiga instead of LED. I picked up a Telemin Performance immediately after the tournament to replace Hull Breach.

Xantid wasn't so good Sunday, but I'm definitely keeping the four in my 'board. Manamorphose was mediocre, but I feel like it might be better to have a quad of those than a quad of Gitaxian Probes in this deck. I ran into some super awkward hands that needed green mana but that would've had a kill if at least one card had been a color-fixer. I hate running Manamorphose in All Spells because that deck often doesn't get any way to cast it and would rather mulligan than draw cards. In this deck, though, there's a real problem of getting choked out of playing green cards, and we can't mulligan more than once or twice in a game without getting totally destroyed. I'm thinking I might switch out the 3 Probes for a fourth Pyretic Ritual and 2 more Manamorphoses.

The card I most wanted to play, but never had the chance, was Army of the Damned. I like that card a whole lot because it has such a huge payoff and because we don't need to cast many spells/accumulate storm to hit it. It's pretty narrow, though—requiring two LEDs or idiotically lucky cantripping—so I can see why people don't run it often. Anybody else still running it maindeck or sideboard? Assuming it's real, I'm wondering whether Rise from the Tides from SoI could be good instead. Not likely to net us anywhere near 13 zombies, but it's something we can use with a low storm count (or after getting our whole combo countered), and it's much more affordable than Army. Clashes with Spirit Guides a bit, though.

Has anyone run into enchantment-based hate lately/ever? I ran Hull Breach in my 'board because I'm skittish, but I never had a need for it. Regarding Shattering Spree, how often do people feel like they need—or get the chance—to use it?

Do we have any answers to hatebears except Goes-Fast?

I guess my main questions revolve around the sideboard/wishboard. What's everyone running that they find indispensable? What's everyone brewing with at this point? What's been a disaster every time it's come in?

Thank you all in advance for your advice and input!

[Blastoderm]

Hi Ronald and welcome to Belcher! :)

I truly hate Manamorphose mainly because you can't evaluate your opening hand. Gitaxian Probe has the same issue but it doesn't have an initial mana cost. I'm playing 4 pyretic ritual and 4 gitaxian probe. If another ritual is printed in the future, gitaxian probe will be replaced.

Consider this opening hand: Taiga, Lotus petal, rite of flame, manamorphose, goblin charbelcher, burning wish, lion's eye diamond. What do you do? Do you use mana to cast manamorphose? Do you risk drawing a Land Grant, another business spell or a chrome mox?

I haven't had any green problems lately... You have 13 green sources. You can also use Chrome Mox to get rid of a green card you can't cast.

As for enchantment removal I'm only running Reverent Silence. I've used shattering spree to get rid of pithing needle and chalice of the void. It doesn't come up often because the deck is so fast but it does sometimes. I'm not a fan of Hull Breach because it's two mana and you almost never have to deal with two pieces of hate. Simplify is another option but requires a green mana (reverent silence requires Taiga). I think that enchantment removal is the most cuttable card in the sideboard right now and could be replaced with something more useful like Past in Flames, Diminishing Returns or Reforge the Soul (basically something to help against decks with Thoughtseize/Hymn followed by Liliana).

Telemin Performance is 100% necessary and should be a sideboard staple. It helps with matchups where goblins are just not good enough (lands, griselbrand decks, storm). Army of the Damned isn't great... you can easily go for Infernal tutor into Belcher which only needs one LED or a carpet of flowers. My only hatebear removal is Flame Slash for Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Cannonist and Phyrexian Revoker. You pretty much auto-lose to Thalia though.

My sideboard is as follows (which i played tonight to a 3-1 finish):

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Guttural Response (can also be pyroblast to increase storm count or carpet of flowers... depends on the metagame)
1 Telemin Performance
1 Flame Slash
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Empty the Warrens

[cdnza]

I haven't played Belcher in over a year and somehow people have convinced me that maybe I should play it at the 3k at CFB this weekend. What are people playing in sideboards these days? I am presumably locked on 4 swarms and the standard wish targets but even there I am not sure what is good right now. Do people still like DimRet/Reforge? How good is the Infernal?

Maindeck will be relatively standard (4 Probe, 3 Pyretic, 1 Manamorphose was my split last time). I kinda want to revisit playing Chancellor of the Annex but I have no idea if its relevant any more. Basically I am really out of the loop with this deck and would love if anyone can contribute what they've found to be good this year.

[Blastoderm]

I haven't played Belcher in over a year and somehow people have convinced me that maybe I should play it at the 3k at CFB this weekend. What are people playing in sideboards these days? I am presumably locked on 4 swarms and the standard wish targets but even there I am not sure what is good right now. Do people still like DimRet/Reforge? How good is the Infernal?

Maindeck will be relatively standard (4 Probe, 3 Pyretic, 1 Manamorphose was my split last time). I kinda want to revisit playing Chancellor of the Annex but I have no idea if its relevant any more. Basically I am really out of the loop with this deck and would love if anyone can contribute what they've found to be good this year.

Chancellor seems bad. Postboard you side out gitaxian probe and seething song. 4 xantid swarm is a staple but the other 4 cards depend on the meta you expect. If your meta has tons of delver id play 4 carpet of flowers. Otherwise 4 guttural response is fine.

Besides the 8 cards you side in vs blue the staples are generally:

1 telimin performance
1 empty the warrens
1 shattering spree
1 reverent silence

That leaves 3 flex spots. Usually i like cards that let you recover after disruption: diminishing returns, past in flames, flame slash, goblin warstrike. Inferal tutor lets you burning wish for belcher.

See my previous post regarding manamorphose

[Ronald Deuce]

I kinda want to revisit playing Chancellor of the Annex but I have no idea if its relevant any more. Basically I am really out of the loop with this deck and would love if anyone can contribute what they've found to be good this year.

I'm not a fan of Chancellor. For a long time I thought it would be a pretty reasonable inclusion in this deck and All Spells, but if we can't go off immediately, our opponents will just run out their least relevant spell on turn 1 to bait out all the Chancellors. Then they'll do whatever they were going to do unimpeded. For instance, opponent has a hand with Delver, land, countermagic, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt; opponent casts t1 Lightning Bolt, it gets countered, and they do their thing for the rest of the game regardless of how many Chancellors we had in our opener.

[Ronald Deuce]

Hi Ronald and welcome to Belcher! :)

I truly hate Manamorphose mainly because you can't evaluate your opening hand. Gitaxian Probe has the same issue but it doesn't have an initial mana cost. I'm playing 4 pyretic ritual and 4 gitaxian probe. If another ritual is printed in the future, gitaxian probe will be replaced.

Consider this opening hand: Taiga, Lotus petal, rite of flame, manamorphose, goblin charbelcher, burning wish, lion's eye diamond. What do you do? Do you use mana to cast manamorphose? Do you risk drawing a Land Grant, another business spell or a chrome mox?

I haven't had any green problems lately... You have 13 green sources. You can also use Chrome Mox to get rid of a green card you can't cast.

As for enchantment removal I'm only running Reverent Silence. I've used shattering spree to get rid of pithing needle and chalice of the void. It doesn't come up often because the deck is so fast but it does sometimes. I'm not a fan of Hull Breach because it's two mana and you almost never have to deal with two pieces of hate. Simplify is another option but requires a green mana (reverent silence requires Taiga). I think that enchantment removal is the most cuttable card in the sideboard right now and could be replaced with something more useful like Past in Flames, Diminishing Returns or Reforge the Soul (basically something to help against decks with Thoughtseize/Hymn followed by Liliana).

Telemin Performance is 100% necessary and should be a sideboard staple. It helps with matchups where goblins are just not good enough (lands, griselbrand decks, storm). Army of the Damned isn't great... you can easily go for Infernal tutor into Belcher which only needs one LED or a carpet of flowers. My only hatebear removal is Flame Slash for Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Cannonist and Phyrexian Revoker. You pretty much auto-lose to Thalia though.

My sideboard is as follows (which i played tonight to a 3-1 finish):

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Guttural Response (can also be pyroblast to increase storm count or carpet of flowers... depends on the metagame)
1 Telemin Performance
1 Flame Slash
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Empty the Warrens

Sounds like a pretty solid board. What do you think of Wild Cantor as a singleton? I'm not too enthusiastic, but it feels like something that could fix mana at a premium.

[Blastoderm]

Sounds like a pretty solid board. What do you think of Wild Cantor as a singleton? I'm not too enthusiastic, but it feels like something that could fix mana at a premium.

Singletons make the deck inconsistent. It's played in Spanish Inquisition and All Spells only because you have access to Summoner's Pact. Also, having one in your opening hand in Belcher is basically like taking a mulligan which is what you would do anyways if you couldn't cast your green spells.

[Ronald Deuce]

Also, having one in your opening hand in Belcher is basically like taking a mulligan which is what you would do anyways if you couldn't cast your green spells.

That's a good point. Didn't think of it in those terms.

[Ronald Deuce]

according to MtgTop8, Belcher just won an MTGO Legacy league!

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=12001&d=268797&f=LE

Congratulations, Zippers! A winner is you!

[AceOfJacks]

I have a strange idea that I would like some of the more seasoned players to try out. The reason why I am asking others to try this instead of myself, is that I am not very popular with the others at my LGS. As a result of this, I don't have anyone to playtest this idea. I will try to get as much testing as possible, but the more people who can help me test, the better.

The idea is as follows:
Game 1, play "budget" Belcher. Why budget? We have a transitional sideboard, which transitions into Sneak Attack. This means that we have no Burning Wish gameplan, and we also do not want LED in the deck. I propose this decklist as a starting point:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song (normally Lion's Eye Diamond, but we normally use LED to activate Belcher, whereas we cannot use it to activate Sneak Attack)
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
4 Land Grant
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lotus Petal
3 Serum Powder (normally this is Chrome Mox, but because we want to look for possible t1 kill so opponent thinks we're playing Belcher, but then we sb into Sneak Attack and make them sb incorrectly.)
1 Taiga

SB:
4 Sneak Attack
3 Through the Breach
4 Worldspine Wurm
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (However, I think this should be a different creature, since we want to kill with either the swing, or the tokens that are left after. Worldspine leaves 15 power, while Emrakul does not kill the opponent. We "blow the payload" with Emrakul and then we're done. If we were always on the play, I would suggest Blightsteel Colossus, but if they play turn 1 creature, then we probably don't kill them.)

Sideboard transition:
Remove 15 cards, add 15 cards, to throw our opponents off and have them sideboard incorrectly against us. We side out Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens, but we need to figure out the other 7 cards to remove.


Any thoughts?

[Hopo]

Deus of the calamity used to be a premium transformational sideboard plan in vintage belcher. If cast early, there's really not coming back from the land lock. Sneak attack is an interesting choice also.

[caprino]

I have a strange idea that I would like some of the more seasoned players to try out. The reason why I am asking others to try this instead of myself, is that I am not very popular with the others at my LGS. As a result of this, I don't have anyone to playtest this idea. I will try to get as much testing as possible, but the more people who can help me test, the better.

The idea is as follows:
Game 1, play "budget" Belcher. Why budget? We have a transitional sideboard, which transitions into Sneak Attack. This means that we have no Burning Wish gameplan, and we also do not want LED in the deck. I propose this decklist as a starting point:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song (normally Lion's Eye Diamond, but we normally use LED to activate Belcher, whereas we cannot use it to activate Sneak Attack)
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
4 Land Grant
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lotus Petal
3 Serum Powder (normally this is Chrome Mox, but because we want to look for possible t1 kill so opponent thinks we're playing Belcher, but then we sb into Sneak Attack and make them sb incorrectly.)
1 Taiga

SB:
4 Sneak Attack
3 Through the Breach
4 Worldspine Wurm
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (However, I think this should be a different creature, since we want to kill with either the swing, or the tokens that are left after. Worldspine leaves 15 power, while Emrakul does not kill the opponent. We "blow the payload" with Emrakul and then we're done. If we were always on the play, I would suggest Blightsteel Colossus, but if they play turn 1 creature, then we probably don't kill them.)

Sideboard transition:
Remove 15 cards, add 15 cards, to throw our opponents off and have them sideboard incorrectly against us. We side out Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens, but we need to figure out the other 7 cards to remove.


Any thoughts?


what are the 15 cards you take away?

[Ronald Deuce]

I have a strange idea that I would like some of the more seasoned players to try out.

The idea is as follows:
Game 1, play "budget" Belcher. Why budget? We have a transitional sideboard, which transitions into Sneak Attack. This means that we have no Burning Wish gameplan, and we also do not want LED in the deck.

[EDIT: Looks like I didn't read the card on Worldspine. Dumb stuff I wrote's been removed. Gotta stop posting at 2am...]

At first glance, I think pulling out the strongest combo-enabler for a gameplan that has no guarantee of sticking anything is a bad plan. It also doesn't feel "budget" to me.

Removing LED makes it much, much harder to hit the mana we need for Belcher, and removing Burning Wish reduces both our chances to combo and our flexibility. Removing both takes out the deck's primary avenue to victory, and though you're picking up the pace over Empty by swinging in one turn faster with a 15/15, you're not really making the deck more consistent, resilient, or hard-hitting; you're just doing something unexpected. That's fine, but you're also not solving any problems the deck has, especially if your opponent boarded in Pithing Needle or Stifle to stop Charbelcher. These work on Sneak Attack, too. Countermagic is still savage against us, especially without multiple Xantid Swarms, etc. And keeping LED in the deck is huge.

Because you can't get the kill off of Emrakul alone, you lose Sneak Attack's second-best payload. It's also worth pointing out that we don't have the cantrip power to find another creature (or any creatures if we don't have one in hand) if we can't close out the game with the first, which is what makes S&T decks so resilient and consistent.

With all that said, you might try leaving LED and Burning Wish for Tendrils in the deck and boarding in quad Griselbrand. This would let you swing for seven, draw 14-21 cards, and try to hit Burning Wish into Empty or Tendrils of Agony to seal the deal. Alternatively, an end-of-opponent's-turn Through the Breach can net you 14 cards, though Rite of Flame doesn't help here.

Still not sure that's better than just going for the goblins, though. The advantages of G-Brand Attack are that we wouldn't lose out on win conditions (still 10-11) or speed (possibly more likely turn-1 kill using G-brand into Tendrils for 14+), but there's a host of problems. We find ourselves vulnerable to removal. We can't run Swarms or Wish toolbox cards, and Griselbrand can fizzle after two activations. We throw stuff into the deck that we can't cast, and Worldspine is significantly less effective than Griselbrand, and hands with G-brand and LED can get pretty ugly without a lot of mana and an enabler.

You COULD try something like this using a traditional mainboard with LED, Wish, and gobbos:

OUT
-4 Goblin Charbelcher
-4 Manamorphose/Pyretic Ritual
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Empty the Warrens
IN
+3 Sneak Attack
+3 Through the Breach
+4 Griselbrand
+2 Worldspine Wurm
REST of sideboard
1x Shattering Spree
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony

[WarpWorld]

[EDIT: Looks like I didn't read the card on Worldspine. Dumb stuff I wrote's been removed. Gotta stop posting at 2am...]

At first glance, I think pulling out the strongest combo-enabler for a gameplan that has no guarantee of sticking anything is a bad plan. It also doesn't feel "budget" to me.

Removing LED makes it much, much harder to hit the mana we need for Belcher, and removing Burning Wish reduces both our chances to combo and our flexibility. Removing both takes out the deck's primary avenue to victory, and though you're picking up the pace over Empty by swinging in one turn faster with a 15/15, you're not really making the deck more consistent, resilient, or hard-hitting; you're just doing something unexpected. That's fine, but you're also not solving any problems the deck has, especially if your opponent boarded in Pithing Needle or Stifle to stop Charbelcher. These work on Sneak Attack, too. Countermagic is still savage against us, especially without multiple Xantid Swarms, etc. And keeping LED in the deck is huge.

Because you can't get the kill off of Emrakul alone, you lose Sneak Attack's second-best payload. It's also worth pointing out that we don't have the cantrip power to find another creature (or any creatures if we don't have one in hand) if we can't close out the game with the first, which is what makes S&T decks so resilient and consistent.

With all that said, you might try leaving LED and Burning Wish for Tendrils in the deck and boarding in quad Griselbrand. This would let you swing for seven, draw 14 cards, and try to hit Burning Wish into Empty or Tendrils of Agony to seal the deal. Alternatively, an end-of-opponent's-turn Through the Breach can net you 14 cards, though Rite of Flame doesn't help here.

Still not sure that's better than just going for the goblins, though. The advantages of G-Brand Attack are that we wouldn't lose out on win conditions (still 10-11) or speed (possibly more likely turn-1 kill using G-brand into Tendrils for 14+), but there's a host of problems. We find ourselves vulnerable to removal. We can't run Swarms or Wish toolbox cards, and Griselbrand can fizzle after two activations. We throw stuff into the deck that we can't cast, and Worldspine is significantly less effective than Griselbrand, and hands with G-brand and LED can get pretty ugly without a lot of mana and an enabler.

You COULD try something like this using a traditional mainboard with LED, Wish, and gobbos:

OUT
-4 Goblin Charbelcher
-4 Manamorphose/Pyretic Ritual
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Empty the Warrens
IN
+3 Sneak Attack
+3 Through the Breach
+4 Griselbrand
+2 Worldspine Wurm
REST of sideboard
1x Shattering Spree
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony

I like the idea of theory crafting with this deck as most people play mated out lists. I am not saying by any stretch that this is better than what we are already doing. I give you

Griselstorm
Land (1)
1 Bayou

Artifact (15)
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox

Creatures (15)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
3 Griselbrand

Instant (12)
4 Manamorphose
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

Sorcery (17)
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard (15)
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Sneak Attack

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike

2 Through the Breach
1 Show and Tell

1 Worldspine Worm
1 Griselbrand

The idea is to BW -> Show and Tell a Griselbrand into play and draw and storm off. In a dream world Griselbrand is actually cast able at 8 mana.

Happy hunting...

[SecondSunrise]

Belcher just made the finals of the BoM main event in Annecy. Rejoice!

Here's the decklist:

http://www.bazaar-of-moxen.com/en/urlrw,40/main-legacy-decklists,c317.html?event=18&evt=18

Notably, he's running 4 Pyretic Ritual and 0 Manamorphose. Is there any sort of calculation/reason behind that? Or is it just a preference thing? Has anybody ever run the numbers?

EDIT: Just read the comments on the last couple of pages, have to say I agree with the reasoning behind runnin more Rituals, even if the fixing might sometimes be important, especially with Chrome Mox / Tinder Wall / For the SB plan.

[Julian23]

Florian had never played Belcher before, so we stuck with the exact same list we independently got from several experienced Belcher and Combo players. Most notably Ben, the Shaman. Only thing is, we couldn't find a 4th Xantid Swarm on site, so he went with an additional blast. But he hardly ever used any sideboard cards anyways and just straight-up killed most people with turn1 Goblins.

From what I understand, there seems to be consensus that you really don't want Manamorphoses, especially because they make the "Three Golden rules of Belcher" even more awkward than Probe already does:
1) NO FEAR
2) If you have no win-condition, you mulligan
3) If you have 5 cards, you keep.

[Blastoderm]

Florian had never played Belcher before, so we stuck with the exact same list we independently got from several experienced Belcher and Combo players. Most notably Ben, the Shaman. Only thing is, we couldn't find a 4th Xantid Swarm on site, so he went with an additional blast. But he hardly ever used any sideboard cards anyways and just straight-up killed most people with turn1 Goblins.

From what I understand, there seems to be consensus that you really don't want Manamorphoses, especially because they make the "Three Golden rules of Belcher" even more awkward than Probe already does:
1) NO FEAR
2) If you have no win-condition, you mulligan
3) If you have 5 cards, you keep.

100% this. I cringe when I see belcher players keep a hand of 7 with no win condition...Manamorphose is also terrible.

[Brad the Impaler]

Just play probe, really.

For those who have forgotten : Study about Belcher (trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Still up to date I guess :)


Belcher just made the finals of the BoM main event in Annecy. Rejoice!

Here's the decklist:

http://www.bazaar-of-moxen.com/en/urlrw,40/main-legacy-decklists,c317.html?event=18&evt=18

Notably, he's running 4 Pyretic Ritual and 0 Manamorphose. Is there any sort of calculation/reason behind that? Or is it just a preference thing? Has anybody ever run the numbers?

EDIT: Just read the comments on the last couple of pages, have to say I agree with the reasoning behind runnin more Rituals, even if the fixing might sometimes be important, especially with Chrome Mox / Tinder Wall / For the SB plan.

Someone has in fact run the numbers.

I find it interesting that people are cutting Seething Song from the main. SS, LED and redundant RoF are the only cards that give you more than +1 mana. This means that you NEED either 1 Song, multiple Rites, or at least 1 LED and a belcher in your opener to activate immediately. I'm personally not sure how to manipulate the Hypergeometric Distribution well enough to figure out those probabilities, but you only have a 10% chance of opening a 7 with 1 Belcher, 1 LED and a pile of +1 accelerants.

So, if that or multiple Rites are your only paths to a turn 1 belch, your chances are pretty low. I think that's reflected pretty well in the above study, though it kind of helps me to think about it the way I've outlined. I know Song is a pretty sad card to top deck when you're trying to recover, but I just don't think I want to be in a spot where I've diminished my turn 1 belches that much (pre board).

[Ricardio]

I had to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergeometric_distribution

[MasterBlaster]

I find it interesting that people are cutting Seething Song from the main. SS, LED and redundant RoF are the only cards that give you more than +1 mana.

There is also the scenario when you have 4 mana and 2 Desperate Rituals. Pay all 4 mana to play Desperate Ritual witht the 2nd Ritual spliced on. And then play the 2nd Desperate Ritual.

[Brad the Impaler]

There is also the scenario when you have 4 mana and 2 Desperate Rituals. Pay all 4 mana to play Desperate Ritual witht the 2nd Ritual spliced on. And then play the 2nd Desperate Ritual.

I totally forgot about. that, though it has come up for me before. I have to admit, I'd like to see the numbers on a 3 SS decklist vs. 4, because if the statistical difference is small enough, it might be worth the cut. But going down to 1 or 0 just seems like you're opening yourself up to a lot more instances of play Belcher, pass the turn, pray. That's not a place I love being.

[Final Fortune]

Manamorphose has never been a card Belcher should be playing, it's either just a bad card used by inexperienced players or "cute" if you are using it for stuff like Diminishing Returns or Tendrils of Agony out of the SB, it should just be thrown into that category of Gitaxian Probe, Street Wraith and Manamorphose of "I don't know how to mulligan" garbage.

Cutting Seething Song is arguable, it's more of a gold fish card because 3 mana is the point where Island.dec has to counter something or risk Empty the Warrens, so the more resources you put behind Seething Song the less able you are to rebuild after the counter. I probably SB it out more than any other card in the deck, so you could easily replace it with something like Grim Monolith.

[gngpostalsrvc]

I'm thinking of playing this deck at a local 1k and had some questions about some sideboard cards I've seen in recent lists. In what match ups do you side in / wish for Reanimate, Trash for Treasure, and Dragonlord Dromoka?

[Idionym]

Hello everyone!

I've recently decided to get back into Magic after being on break for about a year. I started playing in Alara block but never played Legacy, although I've always followed it.

I decided to get a Belcher deck because I like legacy over any other constructed, especially with standard being so trashy right now.

Anyways, this is my first legacy deck ever. I got it because I want to go the LED combo route, eventually building it into TES->ANT->doomsday/SI depending on what I'd like to do.

For now I just want to master this deck because the jump to TES is like $350 right now and that's kinda alot for me at the moment.

I read through most of the recent posts in the thread and had a few questions.

My mainboard is basically stock. No manamorphose or anything like that:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
1 Taiga
4 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame

Right now, my SB is:

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Pyroblast
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Reverent Silence

MTGO's meta is pretty U heavy, so with that in mind what should I be taking out/putting in? Carpet of flowers, for example, seems good. For the moment I feel like goblin war strike is the weakest part of the SB.

What would you all take out for the big matchups? (Miracles, Uxx Delver, ect.)

Thanks for any help! I look forward to talking with you guys in the coming months!

[ntropy]

Hey folks, I've been a Belcher aficionado for a while, and I just dusted it off to play in SCG Worcester.
I had a blast and went 6-3, no day 2, but oh well.
I thought I'd share my list.

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Tinder Wall
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chancellor of the Tangle
3 Chrome Mox
2 Seething Song
1 Taiga

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Sylvan Library
3 Hull Breach
1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Empty The Warrens

I played against:
Eldrazi
Miracles
Jund
Death and Taxes
Sultai Delver
Enchantress
Burn
Infect
Mud

I lost to the blue decks.
The wish board might as well have been Sedge Trolls, but I liked the Swarms, the Libraries, and the Hull Breaches.

It seems like there's a lot of non blue decks around, and that's good for us!


Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk

[caprino]

from the list of florian stange finished second at the bazaar how about putting 4 chancellor of annex in side?

[Ronald Deuce]

Anybody interested in testing the spoiled Aetherflux Reservoir? I'm wondering whether we'll be able to capitalize on it because we're already trying to go off quickly, so we can use our starting life total to help us get there. It's cheaper than a Belcher activation, but we've got to front-load spells to make it work, and it doesn't combo with Spirit Guides. So what do you guys think?

[mistercakes]

realistically how many spells do you need to cast during that turn to get to 50 life?

4th spell is this card (lets say), then 5 + 6+ 7 +8 (8 card hand all spells) 26 + 20 = still less than 50 and you have to have 51 life in order to try it. maybe fun in another deck, belcher is prob the correct one.

[Sohmxat]

4th spell is this card (lets say), then 5 + 6+ 7 +8 (8 card hand all spells) 26 + 20 = still less than 50 and you have to have 51 life in order to try it.

Wanted to interject, provided the 4 spells are instants, you can cast one of them, then in response to the trigger, cast the next one, respond to the trigger, cast the next one, etc. so you'd gain 8 + 8 + 8 + 8, which would be 32 + 20 = 52, so you'd have enough life to try it. Not saying it's good, but you can get more value out of it.

[AtticusBlaqk]

I took a break from Nic Fit to run some weekly legacy events with Belcher (honestly it was by mistake and I had just packed the wrong deckbox after work). My local meta is all but devoid of Delver and the Miracles players were on vacation or something. Over a 3 week period I was able to run back several 4-0, 3-0, 3-1, and 2-1s.

I have been playing a rather traditional list (committing the cardinal sin of running manamophose over the pyretic rituals). However, I've been interested in mixing it up a little bit and playing some of the belcher variants (2-land and no-land/Recross). Does anyone on here have any experience with the 2-land and Recross variants? Is 2-land viable without access to infernal tutors?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[onemancannon]

I took a break from Nic Fit to run some weekly legacy events with Belcher (honestly it was by mistake and I had just packed the wrong deckbox after work). My local meta is all but devoid of Delver and the Miracles players were on vacation or something. Over a 3 week period I was able to run back several 4-0, 3-0, 3-1, and 2-1s.

I have been playing a rather traditional list (committing the cardinal sin of running manamophose over the pyretic rituals). However, I've been interested in mixing it up a little bit and playing some of the belcher variants (2-land and no-land/Recross). Does anyone on here have any experience with the 2-land and Recross variants? Is 2-land viable without access to infernal tutors?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No and no.
I encourage you to try both 2-land and recross and find out for yourself but:

2-land was outclassed with the printing of red ramp spells. There's no reason to splash black for dark ritual or more than 1 Infernal tutor. It makes Tinder Wall awkward and forces you to MD 4 Manamorphose . AND I want to see your face when you flip the Bayou .

Recross was thrilling in the sense that you didn't have to hope that 10 goblins was good enough. In my experience, "pass the turn piles" from playing Doomsday are saddening. Burning Wish > crack LED > Recross the paths leaving you no cantrip in hand was a complete disaster for me. Creating five card piles in a competitive setting is difficult enough, nevermind stacking 40 to storm through a Gaddock Teeg.

The RG lists are superior by a large margin.

[Ronald Deuce]

2-land was outclassed with the printing of red ramp spells. There's no reason to splash black for dark ritual or more than 1 Infernal tutor. It makes Tinder Wall awkward and forces you to MD 4 Manamorphose . AND I want to see your face when you flip the Bayou .

Adding black also makes things a lot less consistent. It's hard enough to split mana if we're choosing not to run Manamorphose (I'm not convinced it's worse than Pyretic Ritual), and I don't think we need the black Rituals.


Recross was thrilling in the sense that you didn't have to hope that 10 goblins was good enough. In my experience, "pass the turn piles" from playing Doomsday are saddening. Burning Wish > crack LED > Recross the paths leaving you no cantrip in hand was a complete disaster for me. Creating five card piles in a competitive setting is difficult enough, nevermind stacking 40 to storm through a Gaddock Teeg.

A bigger problem is that you've telegraphed your punch completely. Anyone with anything resembling an answer absolutely will stop you if you "go off" and can't kill them. The only reasons Empty gets a pass are that it's the hardest "pass the turn" card for most decks to answer and it tends to savage decks that can make a lockout plan on turn 2-3.

One advantage to Recross was never failing to get lethal on a Charbelcher. Of course, it also opens you up to autoloss to decks like All Spells and manaless Dredge.

[caprino]

Hi, i play list no manamorphose and 4 pyretic ritual and 4 Chrome mox main deck...my side Vs blu deck is 4 xantid swarm and 4 guttural response...help me side out Vs blu deck

[AtticusBlaqk]

No and no.
I encourage you to try both 2-land and recross and find out for yourself but:

2-land was outclassed with the printing of red ramp spells. There's no reason to splash black for dark ritual or more than 1 Infernal tutor. It makes Tinder Wall awkward and forces you to MD 4 Manamorphose . AND I want to see your face when you flip the Bayou .

Recross was thrilling in the sense that you didn't have to hope that 10 goblins was good enough. In my experience, "pass the turn piles" from playing Doomsday are saddening. Burning Wish > crack LED > Recross the paths leaving you no cantrip in hand was a complete disaster for me. Creating five card piles in a competitive setting is difficult enough, nevermind stacking 40 to storm through a Gaddock Teeg.

The RG lists are superior by a large margin.

I appreciate your detailed response. I don't know what happened but I missed the notification and this thread doesn't update very often.

I piloted Recross for a few weeks but talk about the feel bads... I always felt like I was committing a ton of energy to piles only to mess up the execution or have my opponent sculpt their hand for the perfect answer after I made a pile and passed. I found this playing the deck was incredibly draining. Maybe with some practice it wouldn't be so bad.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SecondSunrise]

Hello everyone! Yesterday I played Belcher in the Legacy Main event of MKM Series Milan 2017, piloting it to a 15th place finish with a result of 6-2.

The games were very Belcher-y (which of course means epic) and typical, so I will not go into too much detail here, since the main point is probably my list. But first, here are the matchups I faced:

R1 Merfolk 1-2
R2 Burn 2-1
R3 Miracles 2-0
R4 UB Reanimator 2-0
R5 Miralces 0-2
R6 Miracles 2-0
R7 Colorless Eldrazi 2-0
R8 ANT 2-1 (game loss for tardiness....oops XD )

This means 3-2 against decks with FoW in them, 3-0 against the rest, which seems about correct to me. The fact that I faced no Delver at all probably helped as well.

The list I played is largely based on the paper written by Trall (at least that is the user handle in MTGS, I believe I saw it on here as well), so I want to thank them first of all. I made some minor tweaks in parts where the paper seemed inconclusive to me, since there were some MD configurations that they did not test with the nifty algorithm.

MD
1 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Manamorphose
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
2 Empty the Warrens
SB
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Pyroblast
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Pyroclasm
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Reverent Silence

The main point here is that I played 10 instead of 11 business spells, as per Trall's paper. I had no problems with this approach and I do not think I mulliganed more than is normal with this kind of deck.

The other noteworthy choices is the split of 2 Chrome Mox, 3 Manamorphose and 4 Pyretic Ritual. The background is that I really hate Chrome Mox; while I can appreciate that it is a permanent source of mana, it just feels incredibly clunky most of time I have it in hand. It also does not make mana by itself if drawn in the late game (everything after turn 2), since we are likely to have no colored cards in hand by that point! I was very happy with having only 2 of them, making room for the 4th Pyretic and the 2-3rd manamorphose.

Manamorphose was really good all day and I have no idea why people are not liking it. The key insight is that you can use it reliably to find mana, but not to find buisness, because of the respective ratios we play. Just don't keep hands that have no business, no matter how many cantrips you have, and you are good to go! I feel like people bashing on Manamoprhose are maybe prone to talking themselves into bad keeps with it, which in turn colors their perception of the card.
I was just happy about the free storm count and it even fixed my mana one time for a Burning Wish.

I'll admit that I have no real insight in regards to the 4th Pyretic, other than I had the mana I needed most of the time. It might be correct to just play the 4th Manamorphose instead.

Overall I was very happy with the list, it was a blast to play!

[WarpWorld]

Manamorphose was really good all day and I have no idea why people are not liking it. The key insight is that you can use it reliably to find mana, but not to find buisness, because of the respective ratios we play. Just don't keep hands that have no business, no matter how many cantrips you have, and you are good to go! I feel like people bashing on Manamoprhose are maybe prone to talking themselves into bad keeps with it, which in turn colors their perception of the card.
I was just happy about the free storm count and it even fixed my mana one time for a Burning Wish.

+1 this. I agree with this and wouldn't leave home with less than 4 of them. I play almost the same list as you.

Just to throw it out there and by no means do I think that this is strictly better than 1-land but when I wanna kick it old school I play this:

Land (2)
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

Artifact (14)
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

Creature (14)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
2 Tinder Wall

Instant (16)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual

Sorcery (14)
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Land Grant
2 Empty the Warrens

Sideboard
Wish targets and usual stuff


Happy Friday.

[HansoRaptor]

Street Wraith is a typo right? Gitaxian Probe seems to be strictly better as it gives you information about the opponents hand and increases your storm count. Other than that I also prefer the RG build with Manamorphose.

[WarpWorld]

Street Wraith is a typo right? Gitaxian Probe seems to be strictly better as it gives you information about the opponents hand and increases your storm count. Other than that I also prefer the RG build with Manamorphose.

No it isn't a typo. It is a nod to the fact that you sometimes need black mana with chrome mox. Otherwise they both say pay 2 life draw a card. I do understand the differences between the 2. Also if I was going to an event tomorrow I would run a stock 1 land list instead. This was more of a fun old school list. But don't knock it because it is just as deadly.

[HansoRaptor]

No it isn't a typo. It is a nod to the fact that you sometimes need black mana with chrome mox.

Well that makes a lot of sense :tongue:

[SecondSunrise]

WarpWorld, your list seems very interesting. Dark Ritual is obviously insane in the deck, but taking out Seething Songs to put in Dar Rituals seems weird, since it does not actually make us go higher (both make +2).

Also, the 2nd land seems terrible... I do already fizzle with Belcher somewhat regularly (might be bad luck) and raising that percentage seems just bad.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a deck that has Dark Rit but no Bayou? Numbers would obviously have to be tweaked, I'm guessing we would need more Moxen to have black mana somewhat regularly between Mox, Petal and Manamorphose... interesting, I might tinker with that idea.

[WarpWorld]

WarpWorld, your list seems very interesting. Dark Ritual is obviously insane in the deck, but taking out Seething Songs to put in Dar Rituals seems weird, since it does not actually make us go higher (both make +2).

Also, the 2nd land seems terrible... I do already fizzle with Belcher somewhat regularly (might be bad luck) and raising that percentage seems just bad.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a deck that has Dark Rit but no Bayou? Numbers would obviously have to be tweaked, I'm guessing we would need more Moxen to have black mana somewhat regularly between Mox, Petal and Manamorphose... interesting, I might tinker with that idea.

Black mana isn't hard to come by. I have my share of bad beats and being on the wrong end of things but that is just the game we play. The second land can come up but most of the time you are going off with 1 land in the deck. It also means that the second land grant doesn't feel so bad. Most people also know to wasteland your taiga on sight because it is normally your only permanent mana source. Some food for thought.

-1 Bayou
- 2 cabal ritual
+1 chrome mox
+2 Seething Song

Something more like this? Not sure about the 3rd chrome mox.

[SecondSunrise]

Black mana isn't hard to come by. I have my share of bad beats and being on the wrong end of things but that is just the game we play. The second land can come up but most of the time you are going off with 1 land in the deck. It also means that the second land grant doesn't feel so bad. Most people also know to wasteland your taiga on sight because it is normally your only permanent mana source. Some food for thought.

-1 Bayou
- 2 cabal ritual
+1 chrome mox
+2 Seething Song

Something more like this? Not sure about the 3rd chrome mox.

That could be an interesting approach. I believe the 3rd Mox is probably correct in those lists, I will try to goldfish this list on cokcatrice/mtgo and see where it leads me.

[Blastoderm]

Manamorphose - Still awful and always will be.
Street Wraith - See --> manamorphose.
Playing a second land - Only if you like fizzling more often.

There's a reason why old two land belcher moved to 1 land RG once enough red rituals were printed.

[Ronald Deuce]

I don't think adding Dark Ritual really accomplishes that much at this juncture. Maybe if there were some way to fit Infernal Tutor into the mix, it'd be worth it, but I don't really like the idea of splitting our rituals between two colors. From what little testing I've done with TES (and keeping in mind that TES runs a lot more hand-sculpting than this deck does), that can be a problem. I also don't think it's a good idea to run cards like Street Wraith simply for the imprint capability. We need storm count more often than not; this deck isn't All Spells.

Speaking of Storm count, there's nothing wrong with double-Land Grant or double-Mox. A thing to keep in mind: a lot of people will try to Force the card that gets us to four mana, because that leaves us at our most vulnerable when we're most committed, yet before we can resolve Empty the Warrens. Playing, say, Rite, Desperate Ritual, and Chrome Mox (holding up another mana source) is a way to bait out countermagic without imprinting anything. (N.B.: this doesn't work with Land Grant for obvious reasons.) Either card, in the absence of countermagic, adds to our spell count without costing us anything, regardless of whether we aim to get mana out of it. Personally, I only run 3x Mox because we're already running twelve non-Mox artifacts, and a fourth one feels like too many. But we need initial sources, and Mox is more versatile than Spirit Guides.

Don't run a second land. There is no good reason to (more than) double your odds of fizzling on a Charbelcher, especially if you're only aiming to produce a color of mana the deck really doesn't need pre-Wish.

Manamorphose is mediocre. It's worth pointing out that most decks that have made it to the top brackets have run copies of the card. It's definitely the weakest maindeck card we have, but it's nice to have at least one extra way to make mana of any color we need, especially for Wish targets. I run one, but there's no reason two or three would be worse than a quad of Pyretics. People are overlooking two important aspects of the fact that it's a cantrip: on the plus side, it's one of the precious few ways to rebuild if we get Forced; but on the negative side, we need to throw initial sources at it, and we really can't count on finding what we want off of it. Don't count on finding mana; just as often you'll hit something you can't use (usually business, unfueled Mox, a redundant Land Grant, or a mistimed LED).

And to people who keep advocating for ten business spells, that's fine if you never want to win against a Force. Having backup business is crucial.

[WarioMCP]

We're back, boys.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/april-24-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-04-24

[GradStudent]

http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD27476S/

this list seems very interesting. thoughts? went 5-0 recently

[Kanti]

That's a totally different deck named Spanish Inquisition.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18190-Deck-Spanish-Inquisition-(B-x-Storm-Combo)

[TheYoungPyromancer]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the Belcher archetype. I went from hating the deck to falling in love with it, and I had a really great time when piloting it for the first time a few days ago during a small Legacy tournament at my LGS. I managed to defeat Infect, and I did 3-0-1 (intentional draw when playing the mirror match). This deck is so much more than it looks from the outside. As a Burn pilot, I believe that aggro decks are way harder to master than any deck with resources such as library manipulation and/or card advantage. Perhaps one of the most difficult things about playing a deck such as Belcher is putting up with comments that refer to it as an 'easy deck' to pilot, or a 'cheap win' deck... on the other hand, there's no greater joy in Magic than defeating such opponents.

Therefore, I mean to keep learning about this deck, and I'm curious about whether the sideboard options for this deck will change now that Miracles is out of the picture. This is the sideboard list I'm currently running:

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Pyroblast
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Empty the Warrens

(textbook Belcher, right?)

[WarpWorld]

@TheYoungPyromancer. Just because miracles is gone doesn't mean FOW is. But yeah your board looks fine. Uess there is something really crazy I don't see it changing to much.

@WarioMCP. It is always a good time to play belcher.

[muntah]

Playing Belcher at MKM Frankfurt
(This Report will not give new Metagame insight, nor will it show anything new about the deck. Foremost it will showcase the susceptibility against Force of Will. I just thought it was a nice idea to write up my experiences from the event.)


We're back, boys. Not really.

Just because miracles is gone doesn't mean FOW is. Yes.

Due to the banning of Sensei’s Divining Top, my newly acquired Doomsday Deck was out the question for my trip to MKM Frankfurt. Having to vent a little bit I packed Burn to melt some faces and Belcher to have long breaks in between rounds. Among my friends we had the notion that the decline of Miracles should increase the number of Elves, while only slightly increasing the number of Delver and Deathblade. Diving into the unknown depths of a new metagame I played Belcher at the Grand Trial on Friday.

1:2 Deathblade
2:1 Aggro Loam
1:2 Elves
0:2 Grixis Delver [this guy got me into extra turns because he shuffled like a madman]
1:2 Elves
2:0 Deathblade
0:2 12-Post

My List was highly standard with these modifications: Burning Wish / 10 Wincons / 3 Pyretic 2 Chrome Mox
SB:
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Forest
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Bribery
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony

After the savage 2-5 beating I unsleeved my deck and wrote up a decklist for Burn. During Saturday I entered a 8-Player Single Elimination Side Event. I burned some people but wasn't really feeling good about it, so everybody on the table encouraged me to play combo once again.
Belcher it is.

Round 1: David with R/W Hatebears
I cast Gitaxian Probe and see: Pyrostatic Pillar, Deflecting Palm, Path to Exile, Scab-Clan Berserker. T1 18 Goblins put him to the test. And he scoops. Game 2 I am having no spell to take me from 1 to 3 Mana. His Boros Reckoner and Dryad Militant beat me to death. Game 3: 10 Goblins on T1 ride me to victory.

Round 2: Guillem with Grixis Delver
Game 1 my Landgrant gets Dazed. Then a Goblin Charbelcher Spell Pierced and at the very end something Force of Willed. Game 2 he is sitting on a Wasteland for 2 turns and then I blast him away with a Belcher. In Game 3 we both are doing our own stuff. He doesn’t have Counter Magic, I don’t have Xantid Swarm or Red Elemental Blast. After a couple of turns he has me down to 15 life with 2 Insectile Aberration on the board. I generate some mana with Land Grant, getting a Forest cast double Burning Wish with into Goblin War Strike and Empty the Warrens. 10 Goblins enter the Battlefield. I get swung by Delvers to 9, Deathrite Shaman enters the play. I mention to him my remaining Goblin War Strike and he shows me his hand. Lightning Bolt and Young Pyromancer. A single red source will win me the game. I slam the card onto the table. Manamorphose. We shake hands.

Round 3: Cedric with Grixis Delver
Game 1 he has the force.
Game 2 I go first and just say “Go”. He casts Death Rite Shaman and passes the turn. I draw some mana and go for it. Chrome Mox eats a Daze. My following Belcher eats Force of Will (he drew Force, 3x Daze, Underground Sea and a DRS).

Round 4: Justus with Storm
After having lost his deckbox and getting it back with the help of the head judge my opponent sits down and takes a Mulligan to 5. After playing a fetchland and says go. Using Gitaxian Probe I see Preordain, Lotus Petal, Gitaxian Probe and a Swamp. My 12 Goblins get the job done. Having seen the Preordain I put him on Storm. But sadly for him in Game 2 nothing is happening on his side. 10 Goblins on my side enter and beat him to 6. Desperately he casts Ad Nauseam and kills himself revealing Cabal Ritual and Past in Flames.

Round 5: Leon with Grixis Delver
Game 1: I cast Land Grant into Force of Will, but my hand is still intact and potentially lethal if I don’t hit the land. Lotus Petal gets Force of Will as well. Good Game.
Game 2: Same procedure.

Round 6: Nancy with D&T
My opponent is eating a sandwich when I arrive at the table and despite me telling her to continue eating at a regular pace, she just devours the thing and gulps the rest of her drink.
I go first and open the game with 10 Goblins. She puts down a Plains and is mentally checking her deck for an answer. She drops to ten and scoops it up.
Game 2: Plains. Go. T1 Belcher with lethal activation after the 20th card.
Legacy!

Round 7: Martin with Sneak and Show
Going first I jam a Goblin Charbelcher into a Force of Will. Tough life. After he sculpts his hand and resolves a Show and Tell I have gotten a new hand and try to Burning Wish into Bribery, getting our own Griselbrand out of his libary onto the battlefield. But my opponent does find a counter spell among 14 cards.
Game 2 holds nothing in particular. Counterspells, Sneak Attack and two red mana for Griselbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

Round 8: Simon with Dredge
I feel lucky and hold a mediocre hand. My opponent does the same. After three turns of Draw&Go a Land Grant powered Goblin Charbelcher shows him who is boss.
Belcher vs Dredge. Magic how Richard Garfield envisioned it.
In Game 2 he shreds my hand with Cabal Therapy, while his Zombies beat me to death.
Game 3 Turn 1 I slam a Belcher into play followed by a Lion’s Eye Diamond. After activation my opponent rubs his hands and I ask “Ready?”.
No matter how ready you are, a Belcher shot for 100 damage on T1 is something I will never get tired off.

Going out with a bang I opted to drop at 4-4 which gave me roughly 210th place (437 players) and drive home.

4 Wins against: R/W Hatebears, Storm, D&T, Dredge
4 Losses against: 3x Grixis Delver, Sneak&Show.

Despite the fact, that the deck gave me a 50% winrate, the (potential) T1 kill rate were quite good that day. I had an absolute blast playing this deck and can only recommend it for those who like fast rounds, long breaks, don’t care about losing to Force of Will.
And it's a deck for those who don't how to spell the words conservative playstyle.

Take care.

[WarpWorld]

@muntah sometimes it happens and I have my share of bad days. How are you boarding? Let us talk about post board games. I have been playing this deck for very long time and this seems like one topic that doesn't get discussed much.

Assuming they have FOW. Play / Draw can be kept in mind as you will do both in games 2 and 3.
Do you keep a 7 with turn 1 win potential but no protection or do you mull?
If you keep do you try and bait their counter spells out and take a slower approach hoping to draw protection?
Do you keep a hand with protection and no win condition?

[muntah]

@muntah How are you boarding?

My non-wishboard consists of 4 Xantid Swarms, 3 Red Elemental Blast and 1 single Forest as seen above. The Forest comes in against any Wasteland deck. It never won a game alone, but it is great to have a single permanent mana source to do stuff with. It pairs quite nicely with Xantid Swarm on T1.
4 Xantid Swarms usually come in against everything with FoW. They have to dispose of it or risk being blown away in T2. Despite being not good in this tournament I would play them again, because they have shown to be quite powerful in previous games.
The 3 Red Blasts were quite the disappointment. Since most FoW decks also pack Wasteland (and we have boarded in the forest), I can only cast the Blast via Lotus Petal (quite the obvious sign for our opponent) or SSG. I personally dislike this card disadvantage and we lose our biggest strength, which is explosive speed. I'd rather wish they were Carpet of Flowers to have some more mana against Daze and Spell Pierce.
Against non-FoW decks I have so far not changed a single thing, with moderate to great success.

How do I decide what to keep after sideboarding?
Having business in my hand is the most important thing. A piece of disruption comes second. Therefore I've kept hands that have a kill, but no protection. If I am on the draw I my hand dictates what mode I have to play
a) Durdle around: Draw some cards and try to setup a kill with enough mana and/or some disruption
b) Bait them: Through smart sequencing you can deceive into countering a non-essential spell or they let a spell pass that generates 3 mana. Pitch a Spirit Guide and sneak in Empty the Warrens.
Honestly: There I feel there is no correct way how to play it, since you can find compelling arguments for all sides (Pushing the combo, waiting for protection, slowrolling/baiting it). It comes down to what your opponent plays (do they have Daze, Spell Pierce in addition to FoW; is an island in play) how his Mulligan was, body language. Therefore my answers to your questions would be:


Do you keep a 7 with turn 1 win potential but no protection or do you mull?
I kept most of those hands, if they were capable of a T1 kill. Otherwise I took a Mulligan until I hit business or was down to 4 cards.


If you keep do you try and bait their counter spells out and take a slower approach hoping to draw protection?
Playing it slow, with the correct sequencing, you can get a Belcher into play (or 8 Goblins) and win the game without a single piece of disruption.

(I hope my train of thought was coherent.)

[WarpWorld]

(I hope my train of thought was coherent.)
@muntah it fine.

On the non-wishboard I have gone back and forth on what to play over the years. I have played and championed a 1 of forest in the board for the reasons you mentioned in the past. I have also played carpet of flowers with success against soft counters. If I was going to play a forest I would probably add 2 or 3 carpets. I like pyroblast over red blast because of misdirection effects. Right now my paper board looks like this.

4 Pyroblast
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warren
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Hull Breach
1 Reverent Silence
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Infernal Tutor

I have been testing with different sideboards online lately. I have the deck minus the infernal tutor due to cost (although that might change). I find I normally don't board more than 4 cards in to fight FOW although what I bring in changes based on play/Draw.

[mistercakes]

played belcher at my weekly. went 3-1 with a somewhat transformational sb:

beat turbo depths (2-1), lost to czech pile (1-2), beat UR delver (2-0), beat BR reanimator (2-0)


4 chrome mox
4 simian spirit guide
4 elvish spirit guide
4 rite of flame
4 seething song
4 pyretic ritual
4 desperate ritual
4 manamorphose
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 tinder wall
4 goblin charbelcher
4 land grant
4 burning wish
3 empty the warrens
1 taiga

sb:
1 goblin war strike
1 diminishing returns
1 scrap mastery
1 empty the warrens
1 telemin's performance
1 tendrils of agony
1 reanimate
2 blood moon
2 magus of the moon
1 avaricious dragon
1 sin prodder
2 pyroblast


given that game 1 there aren't too many cards you really desperately need to wish for, you could free up 2 of these slots and with the 2 pyroblasts you could free up 2 more.

assuming you have 10 cards to transform it might make sense in this greedy meta for:

4 blood moon
4 chalice of the void
2 sin prodder

siding could potentially cut the wish + led plan. you do have some off chances that you will hit your 1 drops after resolving a chalice, could still be okay.

[SecondSunrise]

Honestly: There I feel there is no correct way how to play it, since you can find compelling arguments for all sides (Pushing the combo, waiting for protection, slowrolling/baiting it).



Just wanted to say that while most of your reasoning was sound, I disagree with this sentiment I quoted. I believe that there is a VERY compelling argument fo going fo it T1 everytime, even without protection, which is that every turn we give to our opponent gives him more time to set up a great defense with more Counterspells etc. The key insight is that most opponents' decks are way more capable of drawing certain cards, while we have no such interactions and just draw random (albeit redundant) pieces off the top.

If you have a Xantid, great! Play it and wait a turn. But otherwise I think we give up more %-points by waiting then by just going for it.

[WarpWorld]

@mistercakes has scrap mastery come up? It seems spicy. I have played goblin welder in the board for to rebuy belcher. I am not sold on the stompy sideboard plan though. We are not a stomp deck and playing a turn 1 blood moon or chalice might be nice but it isn't winning us the game. They can still draw out of it. What does a card like chalice do for us? sin prodder does on the other hand is someting i will test out because drawing cards is always nice.

Jamming games online when I can. Did get the tutor. I will share some of my experiences and thoughts later when I get home and can sit at a computer.

[mistercakes]

scrap mastery unfortunately only came up in goldfishing.

if you have belcher + led in hand and can't cast belcher but can somehow cast mastery that's pretty much the situation!

[gRR!!]

Hey there folks,

This last Saturday I've ended 8th in the Catalan Legacy League playing 1 Land Belcher. We were 53 players. Here's the list I've played and a little report:

1 Taiga
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

SB:

4 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Goblin War Strike

I played the deck this Thursday in my LGS, finishing 3-1 and ending 3rd out of 13 players. I lost vs Infect (horrible pairing) and then won vs MUD, a strange BUG concoction and Death & Taxes. This year I'm trying to play a different deck every Catalan Legacy Tournament (so far I've played Omni-Tell, Sneak Show, Big Red, Manaless Dredge and now Belcher), and after the banning of Top I thought that there should be a lot of Elves, Burn and other combo decks, so I decided to pick Belcher and try my luck; the brutal speed of the deck give us a huge edge against Elves, Burn and Death and Taxes, and can take other combo decks like ANT or even Reanimator by surprise. And control is always a difficult pairing, but people keeps thinking that one FoW will be enough and that's not nearly true, as some of my opponents learnt the hard way :)

The tournament went like this:

Round 1, vs Isaac w/ Burn

I won the dice roll, so I choose to start. I'm not sure if my opponent will be playing Burn or Elves. I can (and do) produce 12 goblins turn 1, and he scoops, so I'll have to wait until game 2 to see what I'm facing. Game 2 he mulligans to 6 and I mulligan to 5 to a hand that can produce some goblins. He starts with Mountain, Guide, so I know what I'm playing against at least. I Probe him to see Eidolon, Mountain, Mire, Fireblast and Pyroclasm, so my Goblin plan sinks. He deploys Eidolon and a couple turns later I have to play Burning to Pyroclasm just to stay alive (fun fact: one of the Guide attacking triggers reveals my only Taiga). Anyway I'm very low on life and he finishes me shortly after with Bolt+Fireblast. Game 3 is epic: I Probe him turn 1 to see Mountain, Fetch, double Chain, Price of Progress (yes, really), Pyrostatic Pillar and Eidolon. Great, he doesn't have the Pyroclasm, so I can generate 16 goblins. He Chain Lightning me down to 17, then I attack him down to 4 with the Goblins, and next turn he plays the Pyroclasm he topdecked in his first draw step. Things gets even more difficult when he plays Pyrostatic Pillar, but in his next turn he misplays and fetches and Chain Lightning me instead of playing his Eidolon, so he goes down to 1 and can't play any spell of his deck other than Fireblast. So five or six turns later I can play Empty the Warrens with storm 3 going down to 3 life, generate 6 Goblins and attack with them next turn for the win. Phew!

Win, 2-1 (no sideboard in games 2 nor 3)

Round 2, Adrià w/ Elves

I won the dice roll again, so I choose to start again (my opponent jokes telling me that, had he won the dice roll, he were unsure about letting me start, given that last month I was playing Manaless Dredge). I have the mana to play and activate Belcher turn 1, and he scoops (my Taiga were in the deck, so I could have fizzled, but hey). "How fun", he says (I have enjoyed it a lot, to be true). Again, I have no clue about what could be playing my opponent; I thought it could be ANT, but I were wrong. He mulligans down to five, I keep my seven. He plays fetch, go, and I promptly produce 12 goblins turn 1. In his second turn he plays Visionary IIRC, and I attack with my little Red Army. He untaps, plays a 2nd Visionary, draws the extra card, plays Gaea's Cradle, thinks for a minute and concedes. I think I've spent more time writing this round that actually playing it :)

Win, 2-0 (no sideboard in game 2)

Round 3, Víctor w/ Patriot

This time my opponent wins the dice rolls and chooses to start. I'm not sure about what he will be playing, but it will be some control deck for sure; I ask him "do you play any deck with FoWs?" and he answers asking me "have you ever seen me playing some deck without FoWs?", so this is it. My hand has Probe, double Chrome Mox, cards to imprint on the Moxen, Rite of Flame and Empty the Warrens. He plays land, go, and I Probe him in my first turn to see double FoW, Jace, Jitte, Misty and Tundra. I play Chrome Mox imprinted, Rite of Flame, Chrome Mox imprinted and he lets them to resolve; I exile ESG and play the Warrens with storm 5. He counters one of the copies, so I put onto the battlefield 8 Unglued Goblin Tokens. Next turn I attack (he sends one poor goblin to farm) and put more pressure on him by playing another Elvish Spirit Guide. Next turn I attack again and finish him. This time I have to sideboard: -4 Git Probe -3 Seething Song for +4 Xantid Swarm +3 Carpet of Flowers. This is the standard sideboarding, I've used it every time I sideboarded. He starts and mulligans down to 6; I keep my seven. He plays land, go, and I start with Land Grant (resolves) to Taiga to Carpet of Flowers (resolves), followed in the second main by a chain of rituals + LED + Burning Wish. He Snares the Wish, so I have to pass with an empty hand. In his next turns he's only chaining cantrips (and playing islands, which is great for my Carpet), until I eventually find and play Xantid Swarm, attack with it until I find Charbelcher a couple of turns later, and actívate it for the win next turn.

Win, 2-0

Round 4, Damien w/ RIP Miracles

I won the dice roll, so I went first. I Probe him, see that he doesn't have any counter that could stop me, so I play and activate Belcher; this time I have to reveal cards from my library, as my Taiga is still there and he doesn't scoop. Anyway the land is deep enough, and Belcher deals him 60+ damage (I think damage should be cumulative between games, by the way :) ). I make the standard sideboarding. Game 2 he mulligans to six and I keep my seven. Seeing my notepad I suppose he countered my first thread, because he went down to 19 and I didn't win on the spot :D. Turn 2 he played Energy Field and shortly after Rest in Peace, so I had to Wish for Reverent Silence and destroy all enchantments, including the Carpet of Flowers I had from earlier turns (anyway, I play another Carpet next turn). He plays Clique and starts to beat me down. My Carpet is giving me a lot of mana and I'm drawing even more and more of it, but I don't draw any answer and Clique kills me. Game 3 I have again an early Carpet of Flowers but I can't launch my goblins until turn 3, when my Empty the Warrens with storm 5 finds a Brainstorm and a Flusterstorm from him, letting me with only 3 copies, one of which is countered via FoW. So I'm left with 4 goblins, which starts to hitting him. Sadly, he can play Snapcaster, Containment Priest (IDK why he sideboarded this) and Jace to stop my attack, and he Entreats two Angels and kills me while he's at two life. Had he not countered the 3rd copy of Empty the Warrens, I had won the match. Oh well, it has been fun.

Lose, 1-2

Round 5, Miquel w/ Patriot

An all-time hard-control player, so I knew the round would be hard. He wins the dice roll and wisely chooses to start. He mulligans to 6, and I keep a risky hand that can play Belcher or Warrens depending of his first play if I draw a red source (I had 2 ESGs and lots of red rituals). The red source doesn't show up and I lose without playing not even a simple spell. I sideboard as usual. I mulligan to 6, my opponent goes too down to 6, and I see a hand without any win condition but with first turn Xantid Swarm. I decide to keep it, and my opponent keeps mulliganing down to 4! I play my Xantid that resolves and some turns later, without any interaction from my opponent, I draw Belcher, play if safe through Xantid and next turn activate it for the win. Game three I have a great hand that can win through a FoW. He keeps, plays land, go, and I play Chrome Mox (resolves, I imprint), Chrome Mox (resolves, I imprint), Lotus Petal (resolves), Lotus Petal (countered via FoW), Land Grant (resolves, my opponent sighs), Empty the Warrens for 14 gobbos (thanks FoW!). This seals the deal and I kill him turn 3.

Win, 2-1

Round 6, Marcel w/ B/R Reanimator

We ID, even though we're not 100% sure that the draw will be enough to make Top 8. Anyway I prefer to ID than to play vs Reanimator; he can be faster than me if I have to choose the Goblin path and I don't have sideboard tools (more on this later). So we shake hands and ID. I end the Swiss in 5th position, but he's 9th and misses the top for barely a 2% tiebreaker. Bad luck for him!

ID, 0-0

Top 8, Oscar w/ Lands

When the Top 8 pairings appears, the friends of my opponent says him "you are out, man!" and the like. I know he's on Lands and, even if the pairing is favorable, I'm not so confident as them: If I have to play goblins, he can Crop to Tabernacle and destroy me even before I get a single attack. Anyway the first match is totally different than expected. He will play first, as he ended 4th the rounds; I was 5th. We both mulligan, and I see a hand with Belcher, Empty the Warrens, Probe, Petal, Land Grant and Chrome Mox, so I'm a mana short to play anything. Anyway the hand is a keeper. I scry and see another Belcher, which goes down to the bottom. He plays land, go. I draw another Belcher and Probe him to see 2 Dark Depths, Manabond and Rishadan Port. I draw from the Probe and get the ritual I need to play Belcher, so I play Land Grant, Chrome imprinting EtW, Lotus Petal, Ritual, Belcher. In his turn he plays Manabond and Port. I draw again in my turn: Empty the Warrens. Go. He draws, plays land, and at end of turn puts the 2 Dark Depths from his hand onto the battlefield. One of them is sacrificed, and now I have one turn to draw any of the 33 mana sources (any of them except Seething Song) remaining in the deck to win. Draw for my turn: Empty the Warrens. Go. End of my turn, he summons Marit Lage and I die horribly.

Sh*t.

Anyway, let's go to game 2: He mulligans, I play 16 goblins turn 1, he has not the Crop Rotation, he loses. And he starts game 3 with Land, Mox Diamond, Sphere of Resistance. 'Nuff said.

Lose, 1-2

I cannot really complain, I've been lucky enough to make it into Top 8 (I will gladly sign that my deck abandons me in the first match of Top 8 for each and every tournament I'll play!)

Some thoughts about the deck:
* First the obvious: This deck is hilarious to play. The faces of your opponents when you blast them 1st turn for 60+ damage is priceless!
* "The deck folds to a FoW": False. I've won a fair share of matches where opponent had the Force of Will and lost anyway. Sometimes he'll try to counter our 4th mana source to get us out of Belcher/EtW, only to find that we can produce that 4th source anyway; sometimes he'll hold his counter for Charbelcher only to find a monster, uncounterable Empty the Warrens, and sometimes he'll mulligan aggresively for his counters; in this case, if he finds them his hand will be badly crippled and we'll have time to recover, and if he doesn't, game is ours anyway. We'll lose games versus FoWs, obviously, but not as much as people thinks.
* "The deck cannot lose to decks without FoWs": False too. Discard turn 1 if we are on the draw, fast, massive removal (see pyroclasms round 1 or the feared crop-to-tabernacle in the Top 8), pithing naming Belcher, and the fact that usually we cannot really choose the path to victory can be as devastating as counters.

And some more thoughts about sideboarding:
* Carpet of Flowers was amazing every time I played it. The other usual sideboard card is Pyroblast, but Blast needs one extra red mana to work, and we can't afford this kind of luxury so often. On the other hand, once we have invested G in Carpet, it will gives us mana turn after turn, until we find the threat we need in order to win, and we'll protect that thread from soft counters with the same mana from Carpet. So I see Carpet like a Pyroblast on steroids (just doesn't protect us against hard counters, but hey, we are here to play).
* I haven't used Infernal Tutor, Tendrils, Diminishing Returns nor Goblin War Strike not a single time. I can see myself playing the Tutor in a scenario with lots and lots of mana affordable, but Tendrils, Diminishing and GWS seemed deeply rooted in the realm of fantasy. Given the predominance of graveyard decks this days, I'm thinking about replacing them for 3 Surgical Extraction // Faerie Macabre.

That will be all, please feel free to share your thoughts. Thanks for reading and sorry for my poor English!

[WarpWorld]

Sorry it took so long for me to get to a keyboard.

On sideboarding I am not really a fan of the ( -4 Git Probe -3 Seething Song for +7) idea. While I feel that probes and songs lose value games 2 and 3 they play both play key roles in the deck as the "+2 mana source" and "free storm count / some information". I like the idea of shaving numbers and going something more like (-1 LED, -2 Probe, -1 Desperate / Pyretic, -2 Song, -1 something) for some number of sideboard cards. I think this gives us the most consistency and resilience in the post board games while keeping us as explosive as possible.

@gRR!!
* I haven't used Infernal Tutor, Tendrils, Diminishing Returns nor Goblin War Strike not a single time. I can see myself playing the Tutor in a scenario with lots and lots of mana affordable, but Tendrils, Diminishing and GWS seemed deeply rooted in the realm of fantasy. Given the predominance of graveyard decks this days, I'm thinking about replacing them for 3 Surgical Extraction // Faerie Macabre.

Having played the deck for a long time I can say that I have wished for everything at one point or another. The cards you list I would keep but i see room in the board.

Infernal Tutor is good to wish for when you are casting BW with 6 floating to find EW or Belcher depending on the game and matchup
Tendrils happens when you chain manamorphose and probes to get a 10 storm or the game has gone long and they are not at 20 so a small Tendrils ends the game where EW takes time.
Diminishing Returns is for when you need to generate storm count. It really shines after mullagans. it can backfire but so can a belcher activation. Worse case is you have a new grip of 7 to try again. Don't forget to remind your opponent they can draw UP TO 7 cards and don't have to draw the full 7. LOL that would be magical Christmas Land.
Goblin War Strike is nice when you have both EW and BW in hand and 6 mana to wish for strike cast EW and say go. GWS plus attack is game.

I see cutting the Reverent Silence, Hull Breach, Pyroclasm for other things as these are the least wished for cards and fall into niche roles. One card that has been doing well for me is Leyline of Sanctity. I have been running 3 to good results against Discard because I find it is the most common way people try and hate us out of the board.

[gRR!!]

Hey WarpWorld,

Thanks for your thoughts! I have to say I'm not a big fan of Seething Song post-board in matches against FoW decks, it's an obvious "must counter" that costs 3 precious mana. About Gitaxian Probe, I see your point, but if I like to replace them by Xantids, so I don't have information but I don't really care :)

About the sideboard, I've been playing the deck lately with 3 Surgical Extraction instead of Goblin War Strike, Diminishing Returns and Tendrils of Agony. I haven't played versus Reanimator since then, so I'm not really sure if the change has been a good idea (first match last week, I could have played Burning With to Goblin War Strike and then Empty the Warrens for the first time since I play the deck, only to find I didn't play Goblin War Strike anymore). About Tendrils, I don't play Manamorphose, so is too hard for me achieve the 8-10 spells I would need to make it really useful. And I'm afraid to fizzle if I try Diminishing Returns, I tried in goldfishing a couple of times and fizzled both of them. I hadn't realize about the "UP TO seven cards" clause until you write it here, lol.

This last two Thursdays I played the deck at my LGS, ending 1-3 last week and 3-1 (2nd out of 10 players) this Thursday. This has been a strange tournament: I faced Death and Taxes three times in four rounds (and ended winning the three of them 2-0, 2-0, 2-0), and lost 0-2 versus Dark Depths due to bad mulligans, massive discard and the fact that Crop Rotation decks are usually hard matchups. Anyway, the deck is still a blast to play and I would recommend to anyone crazy enough to play it!

[WarpWorld]

Hey WarpWorld,

Thanks for your thoughts! I have to say I'm not a big fan of Seething Song post-board in matches against FoW decks, it's an obvious "must counter" that costs 3 precious mana. About Gitaxian Probe, I see your point, but if I like to replace them by Xantids, so I don't have information but I don't really care :)

About the sideboard, I've been playing the deck lately with 3 Surgical Extraction instead of Goblin War Strike, Diminishing Returns and Tendrils of Agony. I haven't played versus Reanimator since then, so I'm not really sure if the change has been a good idea (first match last week, I could have played Burning With to Goblin War Strike and then Empty the Warrens for the first time since I play the deck, only to find I didn't play Goblin War Strike anymore). About Tendrils, I don't play Manamorphose, so is too hard for me achieve the 8-10 spells I would need to make it really useful. And I'm afraid to fizzle if I try Diminishing Returns, I tried in goldfishing a couple of times and fizzled both of them. I hadn't realize about the "UP TO seven cards" clause until you write it here, lol.

This last two Thursdays I played the deck at my LGS, ending 1-3 last week and 3-1 (2nd out of 10 players) this Thursday. This has been a strange tournament: I faced Death and Taxes three times in four rounds (and ended winning the three of them 2-0, 2-0, 2-0), and lost 0-2 versus Dark Depths due to bad mulligans, massive discard and the fact that Crop Rotation decks are usually hard matchups. Anyway, the deck is still a blast to play and I would recommend to anyone crazy enough to play it!

Yes there are definitely "bottle neck" spells but any time you go to 0 in pool you are at risk. But Seething song is a plus 2 and it gets you over 4 mana which is key to our success. I do feel it is weaker post board but I wouldn't cut all 4.

On Diminishing Returns it does have a fizzle rate and sometimes it just sets you up for next turn. You could also try Reforge the soul. It costs 1 more but it is red so it is easier to cast. I tested it for a while and it has a fizzle rate as well but that is how this deck plays.

[Chiptoon]

Hello Belcher thread, I've been considering pick up the deck as a fun alternative to trying to grind out Pox matches in bigger tournaments. I definitely prefer the version running Burning Wish, but I did have one question when looking through builds. What's the consensus on the splits between Pyretic Ritual, Chrome Mox, and Manamorphose in Wish builds? I know Manamorphose is good for storm count and color fixing for Tinder Wall, but it doesn't net any mana. Is it still worth running any copies?

[erevans444]

Hey everyone,

Just got back from playing belcher in my first ever sanctioned Legacy tournament. We only had 16 people but it was a great time. I ended up finishing in 2nd place. Here's my list and a quick write up.


1 Taiga
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Chrome Mox
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
2 Empty the Warrens


SB:

4 Xantid Swarm
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Goblin War Strike

Round 1, vs Can't remember his name w/ Grixis Delver

I'm on the draw. Have a decent starting hand. He has no clue what I'm playing even after showing the land grant. He FoWs the first land grant, dazes the second. I'm stuck with no way to get to 4 mana. I forget how many goblins I get with Empty and only put 5 on the field instead of 10. Game 2. I stupidly keep a hand with no win-con, and i never drew it. Chalk it up to first game nerves and move on.

Lose, 0-2 (Brought in Xantid Swarms in game 2)

Round 2, Matt w/ Death and Taxes

I'm on the play this time. Get a good hand with a probe. See the coast is clear, easy turn 1 belcher. Repeat for game 2. Nothing memorable here really. It was all over in 10 minutes.

Win, 2-0 (no sideboard in game 2)

Round 3, Jesse w/ Tezzerator

Jesse wins the roll. I keep a really good hand but it doesn't matter, as he plays Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond, Trinisphere. That was quick. Game 2, I play Empty the Warrens on turn 1 generating 16 goblins. He can't outrace that and scoops. Game 3, He mulligans all the way to 4, plays an island and passes, I play spirit guide, tinder wall, ritual, seething song, belcher, LED, and Land grant to fetch the Taiga.

Win, 2-1 (Xantid Swarms come in)

Round 4, Sam w/ Burn

We see the standings. Both of us are in the Top 8 if we ID. Top 8 here we come.

Draw.

Top 8
Round 1, Rob w/ Death and Taxes

Lose the roll. Keep an okay hand, but eventually lose to a turn 2 Thalia on his side. Game 2, I have a decent hand with Empty. I make 14 goblins and beat him down for the win. Game 3, I keep another good hand with empty and once again turn to the goblin beat down plan. He was very upset and kept saying my deck was bullshit. Oh well. Them's the breaks.

Win, 2-1

After the cut to Top 4, everyone still in agreed to split the prizes evenly and just fight for the Eternal Weekend Bye that was up for grabs. My opponent didn't want the bye and was exhausted so he conceded to me and left. I had no intentions of playing in Eternal Weekend either, so I conceded to the winner of the other match. All in all, I finished in 2nd place. This was a fun deck to play, and I got some really favorable hands and matchups. I'm really hoping I'll get to play it again sometime soon.

Sideboard thoughts: I didn't sideboard much at all. The Xantid Swarm only ever hit the table once. Other than those, I only Burning Wished for Empty the Warrens. I do think that the blasts are relatively useless as Xantid Swarm is just a better option. I thought about going the Tendrils route at one point, but i realized that I would have been one mana short so I just got the goblins instead. It would have been a nice play, I was just short a mana.

[mistercakes]

Game 3, He mulligans all the way to 4, plays an island and passes, I play spirit guide, tinder wall, ritual, seething song, belcher, LED, and Land grant to fetch the Taiga.

If this is how you sequenced it, I would recommend this :

Land grant, LED, Belcher.

This way if they had a chain of vapor you wouldn't get stuck with a Belcher in your hand. I suppose you could crack the led in response to it, but you would need to use the mana to cast the Belcher.

[TheYoungPyromancer]

How come recent lists are not running any copies of Pyroblast or Red Elemental Blast in their sideboards?

[erevans444]

How come recent lists are not running any copies of Pyroblast or Red Elemental Blast in their sideboards?

From my relatively small sample size, I never sided them win once. Xantid swarm was just better and the blasts wouldn't have done much. I'd rather utilize that spot for some more wish board spots or Carpet of Flowers.

[WarpWorld]

How come recent lists are not running any copies of Pyroblast or Red Elemental Blast in their sideboards?

As erevans444 said Swarm is better and the slots are useful for other things. The big draw back is that they take an extra mana on the turn you are going off. Plus they are useless against flusterstorm which is basicly everywhere.

[AtticusBlaqk]

As erevans444 said Swarm is better and the slots are useful for other things. The big draw back is that they take an extra mana on the turn you are going off. Plus they are useless against flusterstorm which is basicly everywhere.

What about Autumn's Veil in the Xantid Swarm slot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gRR!!]

What about Autumn's Veil in the Xantid Swarm slot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Eats Pierces/Flusterstorms and forces you to have an extra :g: the turn you're going off. Plus, if we play Xantid and opponent knows, he will be forced to keep some creature removal in his deck postboard.

[AtticusBlaqk]

Eats Pierces/Flusterstorms and forces you to have an extra :g: the turn you're going off. Plus, if we play Xantid and opponent knows, he will be forced to keep some creature removal in his deck postboard.

I can get behind the argument that Swarm requires our opponents to diversify their answers.

I love how cleanly Autumns Veil answers a Flusterstorm so I'm always trying to find reasons to play it over Swarm. Thanks for the explanation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WarpWorld]

I can get behind the argument that Swarm requires our opponents to diversify their answers.

I love how cleanly Autumns Veil answers a Flusterstorm so I'm always trying to find reasons to play it over Swarm. Thanks for the explanation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would play it along side Swarm instead of blast. It suffers from the same down side of costing one more on the combo turn but the up side it higher.

[AtticusBlaqk]

I would play it along side Swarm instead of blast. It suffers from the same down side of costing one more on the combo turn but the up side it higher.

I can support that. Especially with the banning of SDT, there are far less Counterbalances entering play that we need to blast.

I always have trouble converting the Green mana for Veil or Swarm. You're dumping at least two cards from a critical mass deck into building some protection for the combo.

How many turns do you 'generally' delay pulling the trigger if you're on the play in SB games with protection against counters? On the draw?

Let's assume that your opponent is not also packing discard.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WarpWorld]

I can support that. Especially with the banning of SDT, there are far less Counterbalances entering play that we need to blast.

I always have trouble converting the Green mana for Veil or Swarm. You're dumping at least two cards from a critical mass deck into building some protection for the combo.

How many turns do you 'generally' delay pulling the trigger if you're on the play in SB games with protection against counters? On the draw?

Let's assume that your opponent is not also packing discard.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For reference this is the sideboard I have been playing with lately.

Anti FOW 8
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Autumn's Veil
2 Carpet of Flowers
Won Cons 5
1 Empty the Warren
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Goblin War Strike
Answers 2
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hull Breach

If they don't have discard and they kept a hand that has some form of interaction... I go for it and make them stop me because we can't control what we draw and it takes time to get my life total to zero. If I fail I can hopefully draw something that goes off again before I die. EtW blanks just FOW if we get lucky. Also with card #8 we can try to play through soft counters and resolve a win con. If not I depoly something to the board and wait a turn. Sometimes getting a belcher on the table turn 1 can win you the game on turn 4 when you finally draw the mana to activate it. Of course if I have hate I take that route. But no matter what I go for it early and often and don't be afraid to commit mana sources to the board if you are planning on waiting a few turns.

On the mana thing. Green can at time feel hard to come by but we run "equal" numbers of green and red mana. That gets a little weird when most of our mana sources are either one time uses or chrome mox which gets stuck on one color unless you have manamorphose. Permanent mana sources are very important to our success in games two and three. Green being the most important in post board games.

[Final Fortune]

Disruption is more viable on the draw than on the play, if you don't have enough mana, and namely enough green mana, then you should cut Manamorphose for Chancellor of the Tangle to support your disruption. On the play, you should just use Chancellor of the Annex.

[WarpWorld]

Disruption is more viable on the draw than on the play, if you don't have enough mana, and namely enough green mana, then you should cut Manamorphose for Chancellor of the Tangle to support your disruption. On the play, you should just use Chancellor of the Annex.
I agree that it is easier to play disruption on the draw than on the play. I don't like cutting manamorphose for Chancellor of the tangle is the way to go if you are looking for extra green. It's feels too narrow because it is dead past your opening hand. I would rather max out on chrome mox if green is really hard to come by. I have even gone as far as sideboarding a basic forest to support green in post board games to get around wasteland. Test different numbers and see what works best for you.

I do like the idea of Chancellor of the Annex on the play even pre board but as AtticusBlaqk said we do need a critical mass of cards to go off so testing will tell. They do suffer from drawback of not functioning past your opening hand, and being terrible top decks.

Speaking of other cards. I have been testing 3 Leyline of Sanctity in the board and have enjoyed them so far. They are obviously there for discard but have pulled weight in other Match ups like storm. They are cute but over rated in Match ups like burn. So I don't always board them in.

[CyrusCG]

Hey guys, I just started playing Belcher this month and have had 2 5-0's with the deck online.

I've put up a 75% winrate and have been extremeley happy with my list. I would not change anything.

4 Xantid Swarm + 1 Guttural Response or 2 Xantid/3 Guttural come in for some number of Chrome Mox/Pyretic Ritual/Manamorphose in sideboarding vs. blue decks.

Basic Belcher principles of wanting Xantid vs. Flusterstorm and not vs. damage based removal decks. Haven't liked the Chrome Moxes vs. Kolaghan's Command or the Manamorphose vs. Leovold decks.

I have been really happy with the Guttural Responses because you can cast them off of the basic Forest which I bring in against blue Wasteland decks and also off of Elvish Spirit Guide or a Tinder Wall imprinted on Chrome Mox.

If anyone has any questions about the deck let me know!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/728720#paper

[Ronald Deuce]

Has anyone tested Reforge the Soul in the maindeck? I don't like relying so heavily on goblins, and I think it could help enable Tendrils of Agony or lethal War Strikes if we draw a second Wish.

The weaknesses of the card speak for themselves, but I'd be interested to hear whether anyone's tried it.

[Final Fortune]

I agree that it is easier to play disruption on the draw than on the play. I don't like cutting manamorphose for Chancellor of the tangle is the way to go if you are looking for extra green. It's feels too narrow because it is dead past your opening hand. I would rather max out on chrome mox if green is really hard to come by. I have even gone as far as sideboarding a basic forest to support green in post board games to get around wasteland. Test different numbers and see what works best for you.

I do like the idea of Chancellor of the Annex on the play even pre board but as AtticusBlaqk said we do need a critical mass of cards to go off so testing will tell. They do suffer from drawback of not functioning past your opening hand, and being terrible top decks.

Speaking of other cards. I have been testing 3 Leyline of Sanctity in the board and have enjoyed them so far. They are obviously there for discard but have pulled weight in other Match ups like storm. They are cute but over rated in Match ups like burn. So I don't always board them in.

You should be using 4 Chrome Mox regardless, Chancellor of the Tangle is A LOT better than Manamorphose as Belcher is not a deck that needs color filtering as much as a initial mana sources and the fact that Chancellor of the Tangle is worthless after the first turn isn't that significant in a combo deck that doesn't plan to see another turn if possible.

[WarpWorld]

Hey guys, I just started playing Belcher this month and have had 2 5-0's with the deck online.

I've put up a 75% winrate and have been extremeley happy with my list. I would not change anything.

4 Xantid Swarm + 1 Guttural Response or 2 Xantid/3 Guttural come in for some number of Chrome Mox/Pyretic Ritual/Manamorphose in sideboarding vs. blue decks.

Basic Belcher principles of wanting Xantid vs. Flusterstorm and not vs. damage based removal decks. Haven't liked the Chrome Moxes vs. Kolaghan's Command or the Manamorphose vs. Leovold decks.

I have been really happy with the Guttural Responses because you can cast them off of the basic Forest which I bring in against blue Wasteland decks and also off of Elvish Spirit Guide or a Tinder Wall imprinted on Chrome Mox.

If anyone has any questions about the deck let me know!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/728720#paper

Congrats. Keep it up. How has the 2 wheel effects been for you? I had that split for along time and liked it.


Has anyone tested Reforge the Soul in the maindeck? I don't like relying so heavily on goblins, and I think it could help enable Tendrils of Agony or lethal War Strikes if we draw a second Wish.

The weaknesses of the card speak for themselves, but I'd be interested to hear whether anyone's tried it.

Yes people were playing around with it when it was first printed. It wasn't as good as people wanted it to be.


You should be using 4 Chrome Mox regardless, Chancellor of the Tangle is A LOT better than Manamorphose as Belcher is not a deck that needs color filtering as much as a initial mana sources and the fact that Chancellor of the Tangle is worthless after the first turn isn't that significant in a combo deck that doesn't plan to see another turn if possible.

I don't think Chrome Mox needs to be a 4 of in this deck I have been on 2 for a long time haven't missed them. Although I could see an argument for 3. But I have been playing around with a lot of different builds lately. Chancellor of the Tangle is best game 1 but his weakness I have found is in hands with Xantid Swarm were we want to wait and go off. Yes he casts swarm but he takes up space in your hand on turn 2 without a Chrome Mox to imprint(yes I have tested 4/4). Manamorphose sometimes fixes our green mana but sometimes it also fixes blue and black when we don't have an led handy when wishing but most of the time it is a free spell and cycler. I don't think that you should be considering mystery cards when make keep or mull decisions because we have no control of the top of our deck sans mirri's guile. Can you share your list?

I am glad that this thread is seeing active discussion.

[caprino]

Hey guys, I just started playing Belcher this month and have had 2 5-0's with the deck online.

I've put up a 75% winrate and have been extremeley happy with my list. I would not change anything.

4 Xantid Swarm + 1 Guttural Response or 2 Xantid/3 Guttural come in for some number of Chrome Mox/Pyretic Ritual/Manamorphose in sideboarding vs. blue decks.

Basic Belcher principles of wanting Xantid vs. Flusterstorm and not vs. damage based removal decks. Haven't liked the Chrome Moxes vs. Kolaghan's Command or the Manamorphose vs. Leovold decks.

I have been really happy with the Guttural Responses because you can cast them off of the basic Forest which I bring in against blue Wasteland decks and also off of Elvish Spirit Guide or a Tinder Wall imprinted on Chrome Mox.

If anyone has any questions about the deck let me know!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/728720#paper
Hi, why you play 2 empty main deck? 3 is no good?

[Ronald Deuce]

Hi, why you play 2 empty main deck? 3 is no good?

I'm not the guy you were talking to, but there's a .pdf from several years ago in which someone ran the numbers on how best to get an opening hand with one piece of business and the mana to use it. The person/people in question came to the conclusion that lists with ten pieces of business (4x Charbs, 4x Burning Wish, 2x Empty) were statistically slightly more likely to give those hands than lists with eleven.

That's not to say that it's universally a better setup; I think having a second piece of business is usually better than having redundant mana in case we hit discard and countermagic, and my experience has suggested that it's important. With that said, I can see merit to both sides of the argument (optimal T1 hands versus resilience). The difference was, IIRC, pretty small—like 1–3%. I might still have that .pdf lying around, though I'm not sure I'm allowed to share it here. I'd do some Googling for it because they did a pretty comprehensive job, though as a humanities guy, I can't say whether their math was correct. I found it a valuable read.

[Demonic_Attorney]

[QUOTE I might still have that .pdf lying around, though I'm not sure I'm allowed to share it here. I'd do some Googling for it because they did a pretty comprehensive job, though as a humanities guy, I can't say whether their math was correct. I found it a valuable read.[/QUOTE]

I am quite certain that you can post it here!

Indeed, there is no court order issuing a publication ban on this particular material, nor is there a sealing Order. Therefore, if you adduce a significant piece of information that buttresses and bolsters your argument/ position on a significant and material issue pertaining to this or any other deck for that matter, than it would be prudent strategy for you to post it here and prove its existence, rather than ostensibly hiding behind something that may not even exist.

[WarpWorld]

@Demonic_Attorney it is back on page 14


For those who haven't read it : My study about Belcher (http://trall3.free.fr/belcher/Belcher.pdf)

Always usefull to have maths behind our arguments :)

[caprino]

Hey guys, I just started playing Belcher this month and have had 2 5-0's with the deck online.

I've put up a 75% winrate and have been extremeley happy with my list. I would not change anything.

4 Xantid Swarm + 1 Guttural Response or 2 Xantid/3 Guttural come in for some number of Chrome Mox/Pyretic Ritual/Manamorphose in sideboarding vs. blue decks.

Basic Belcher principles of wanting Xantid vs. Flusterstorm and not vs. damage based removal decks. Haven't liked the Chrome Moxes vs. Kolaghan's Command or the Manamorphose vs. Leovold decks.

I have been really happy with the Guttural Responses because you can cast them off of the basic Forest which I bring in against blue Wasteland decks and also off of Elvish Spirit Guide or a Tinder Wall imprinted on Chrome Mox.

If anyone has any questions about the deck let me know!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/728720#paper

Vs blue deck you side 4 xantide 3 guttural 1 forest...side out which cards? Thanks

[gRR!!]

Hey there folks,

Now that we have lost Git Probe, how will we replace it? 4x Street Wraith? I'm not really sold on that (no storm count, useless color to be imprinted on Chrome Mox, is misleading in opening hands), but I don't really like any other option.

Thoughts?

[Namida]

Go to the first page of this thread and look at the decklists right before New Phyrexia was released. I don't think much has changed.

Frankly, putting Street Wraith in your deck is a mistake. I've argued against Probe in this deck multiple times, and Wraith is so much worse than that. You play Belcher to constrict the game so much that opening hand and Turn 1 are the only decisions to be made in the game. Playing Street Wraith is deciding to obscure information from what could be the only decision you make all game ("Do I keep this hand?") for the sake of thinning your deck to improve your draws in a deck that is hoping to win without seeing any more extra cards from the top of the deck. That's like playing Wrath of God in your Delver deck because you want to be prepared for if you fall behind. At least Probe contributed to your Storm count, and chaining Probes to make bigger Empty turns is the only positive thing I think the card had going for it.

[caprino]

Hey there folks,

Now that we have lost Git Probe, how will we replace it? 4x Street Wraith? I'm not really sold on that (no storm count, useless color to be imprinted on Chrome Mox, is misleading in opening hands), but I don't really like any other option.

Thoughts?
I think - 4 gitaxian and play 4 manamorphose /pyretic ritual

[Ozymandias]

I think - 4 gitaxian and play 4 manamorphose /pyretic ritual

The one question I have is whether you want Manamorphose in the deck. One the one hand it boosts storm count and fixes your colors. On the other hand it suffers even worse from the topdeck problem than Wraith and Probe did. The only replacement that I came up that wasn't terrible was Grim Monolith, which is one of the few fast mana accelerants left, but can give you bad color problems. It does let you "bank" mana produced from lands and moxen for postboard battles, but is vulnerable to artifact destruction doing so. On the whole I think you probably play the 1 Taiga, 20 IMS, 11 Win conditions, 8 1 mana ritual 8 2 mana ritual, 4 Song, 4 Manamorphose 4 LED list. When you're sideboarding you can cut manamorphose first anyway.

[caprino]

The one question I have is whether you want Manamorphose in the deck. One the one hand it boosts storm count and fixes your colors. On the other hand it suffers even worse from the topdeck problem than Wraith and Probe did. The only replacement that I came up that wasn't terrible was Grim Monolith, which is one of the few fast mana accelerants left, but can give you bad color problems. It does let you "bank" mana produced from lands and moxen for postboard battles, but is vulnerable to artifact destruction doing so. On the whole I think you probably play the 1 Taiga, 20 IMS, 11 Win conditions, 8 1 mana ritual 8 2 mana ritual, 4 Song, 4 Manamorphose 4 LED list. When you're sideboarding you can cut manamorphose first anyway.
I think post bann gitaxian is possible play 2 lands.
This is my list in test

1 taiga
1 forest
4 land grant
4 pyretic ritual
4 desperate ritual
4 seething song
4 rite of flame
4 manamorphose
4 simian spirit
4 elvish spirit
4 tinder Wall
4 Belcher
4 led
4 lotus petal
4 Chrome mox
4 burning wish
3 empty

[mistercakes]

Just search for pre probe lists. Maindeck forest is a bad idea. If you are going to play a 2nd land just make it another taiga.

[caprino]

Just search for pre probe lists. Maindeck forest is a bad idea. If you are going to play a 2nd land just make it another taiga.

Yea is good 2 taiga.

Vs blu deck what do you think 3 reb and 3 swarm?