[Deck] Belcher

[Artowis]

//NAME: Burning Heat - 3 Option Mix
// Mana
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall (Might become Vineyard, don't have to worry about Drain!)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
// land
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
// Broken Stuff
2 Living Wish
3 Tainted Pact
4 Gamble
4 Spoils of the Vault
// Burn j00 out.
4 Goblin Charbelcher
// Protection
4 Goblin Welder
4 Xantid Swarm

I not only goldfish turn 2 and 3 at a good clip with this deck, I still keep Swarm and Welder as a 4-of MD and have more tutoring power than anything else in the enviroment.

Also note that I made this deck in 2 minutes after thinking about it and can probably be impoved upon.

God forbid an optimal list of this and/or Long is created. This format sucks.

[TeenieBopper]

Oh, don't forget all the Draw fours that allow you to run a Long esque deck.

[Rusty]

What about White and enlightened tutor?

[quicksilver]

How can this deck run 4 mox diamond with only two land in the deck?

Nm, I misread the list.

[spike777]

How can this deck run 4 mox diamond with only two land in the deck?
it doesnt. ???

[Bastian]

Ok... I just ended trying the deck and it's gruesomely overpowered, BUT STILL... if they ban a card I really hope it's charbelcher and not ANY of the tutors or mana acceleration. The same goes to any other combo deck that might come by...

It's kind of strange that with the policy they have of restricting and banning tutors and fast mana that they unbanned so many tutors and fast mana for 1.5. Not that I mind it! I love it! I think we should restrict the bans to key cards in those combos rather than take huge chunks out of the deck. (Not to mention that taking out the fast mana will make this format look TOO MUCH as the other extended).

Whaddya think?

[AngryTroll]

so....hand of landgrant/bayou, dark ritual, esg/lotus petal/dark ritual, LED, charbelcher, and then two other cards (FoW x 2, land grant, etc.) = win ON TURN ONE!!!!

[Goober]

Heh, I have been working on this since about 12:02 and this is the best I can come up with for now. It isn't tuned at all, but its really strong.

// Mana
1 Bayou
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Eladamri's Vineyard
4 Chromatic Sphere

//Draw
4 Night's Whisper
4 Spoils of the Vault

//Protection
4 Goblin Welder
4 Duress

//Belcher
4 Goblin Charbelcher

Not having to worry about Workshop->Trinisphere is insane. I have absolutely no idea what the meta will look like after this announcement, so I won't bother with a SB. I expect a lot of decks to pack Null Rod, due to this deck's ridiculousness. That makes me want to side 4 Oxidize, but I am not sure. After the dust settles I will tune it more.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Goldfished it several times, but it seems far more like an average turn 3-4 kill. Yes, I've seen the turn 2 kill, but I was far from able to get that every game, either with or without decent mulliganing. Not saying that the deck isn't strong, but I think the degeneracy you describe is exaggerated. It seems to average out as a turn faster, but far more disruptible combo than Solidarity. I only played it about seven or eight times, so the turn 2 kill might average higher than what I saw, of course.


Also, why do you have this hatred of putting your new decks in the developmental forum?

[Zilla]

Off-topic posts deleted. Moved to Developmental because it's... developmental. -Zilla

[Artowis]

Man just try mine or Goober's list for like 20 games or so. Your goldfish average should easily be turn 2 or at absolute worst turn 3, if not, something is horribly wrong with whatever your doing. The fact that you'd actually even consider comparing it to Solidarity in the equation is bad unless you actually bother to make it more like old High Tide. Belcher not only can randomly get the turn 1 wins, it'll usually win turn 2 and at -worst- w/o opposing disruption, it will win on turn 3.

It's highly disruptable, except oh, you run Welder and Xantid MD and have the ability to fetch anwsers via Wish and can easily SB in Oxidize and junk vs. Null Rod.

Off-topic commentary deleted. -Zilla



Edited By GodzillA on 1094074719

[FyndhornBrownie]

I just bought a good portion of the deck on cardshark. Has anyone optimized the deck any more? any new ideas, or cuts from the deck?

[pavlaugh]

What do you get with Living Wish?

[kirdape3]

Goblin Welder or a land or Scavenger Folk (actually, probably Sex Monkey) to take down Chalice of the Void.

[AzN Lightning]

What does the sideboard for this deck look like, wish targets and more protection?

[Goober]

Trade the Whispers for Oxidize in my list. If Oxidize is dead then you win the game anyways.

[CavernNinja]

Ok here's what I was playtesting today. I played around 30 games 6 of which I won on turn 1 and 12 of which would have ended turn 2 if I hadn't met disruption. I mulliganed exactly twice.

-MANA-
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
4 Tinder Wall
4 ESG
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
4 LED
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
-TUTOR-
4 Gamble
4 Spoils
-KILL-
4 Belcher
-OTHER-
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Night's Whisper (This is my least favorite card in the deck but I think it is necesary)
4 Duress

Ya so this is the coming of the new spoils. Except this one really does roll to control. I find that one force can easily throw the deck off my 3+ turns.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Trade the Whispers for Oxidize in my list. If Oxidize is dead then you win the game anyways.
This may be one of the least true things anyone has ever said. I'm including Newton's peers claiming that he had left nothing new to discover, and the people that said the New Coke would be around forever.

[Mr_Crowley]

Belcher will probably be the first card to be banned unless it proves inconsistent or is hated out.

[Zilla]

Belcher will probably be the first card to be banned unless it proves inconsistent or is hated out.
Banning Belcher would be akin to putting a bandaid on a severed limb. The culprit is unbanned 0 cost mana sources. Likelihood is that Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, and Lotus Petal will be the first candidates for banning.

[cartman34]

Belcher will probably be the first card to be banned unless it proves inconsistent or is hated out.
Banning Belcher would be akin to putting a bandaid on a severed limb. The culprit is unbanned 0 cost mana sources. Likelihood is that Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, and Lotus Petal will be the first candidates for banning.
I don´t think they unbanned thoose cards to ban them some months later,if they would ban belcher they would ban the only Overpowered Deck.i dont think long or Trix are that overpowered,espacially when aggro is a lot faster atm.
Maybe it would be a healthy format just w/o the belcher?
It would be like LED Madness against 4FoF Control against fast Combo(prolly Trix).

just my 2 cents

[Zilla]

Likelihood is the format will be reasonably healthy with the Belcher, because it's imminently hateable with Chalices and Null Rods. The thing is, the amount of available accelleration is going to mean that the format is going to primarily combo - ones which may be slightly slower but also much more difficult to hate than Belcher.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Belcher will probably be the first card to be banned unless it proves inconsistent or is hated out.
Banning Belcher would be akin to putting a bandaid on a severed limb. The culprit is unbanned 0 cost mana sources. Likelihood is that Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, and Lotus Petal will be the first candidates for banning.
You know, it's creepy, but I can't think of a single thing I've seen you say since the announcement came out that I've disagreed with.


I agree on this. I don't think that decks like Belcher and "Long" and Doomsday are broken per se; I've been playtesting against them all day, and half the time a single FoW or Stifle is enough to rape their eye sockets. Another good amount of games, they rape their own eye sockets, fizzling horribly or killing themselves. However, that's not to say that either a better build of these decks or a different combo deck won't be found that works much more reliably, and I think these three cards are ticking timebomb; sooner or later, it just seems like they're bound to destroy the format. In the meantime, they're encouaring a swarm of bad combo, which is bad because, while in small numbers bad combo is amusing, in large numbers you get what we call the "Lucky Frog Effect", where so many people show up with so many bad, janky, random-ass combo decks that the odds tilt and one of them ends up winning the tourney just through the sheer logistics. Even aside from that, these cards place way too much emphasis on early game swing, and going first, that it's safer just to cut them off. I don't think they really add anything to the format in terms of skill or fun or interesting decks; they just add more luck back to the format that's supposed to not be Type 1.

[Eclipt1c]

It seems to me that we got rid of a consistant and somewhat fast combo deck (dragon) and replaced it with a more explosive, less consistant, much more disruptable combo decks (Doomsday, Belcher, whatever else). Chalice destroys the combo enough, and Null Rod+Chalice means they cant win. I don't think we have much to fear from the combo, so maybe the fast mana acceleration isn't on its way out?

[FyndhornBrownie]

I definately think belcher will be a force when it is optimized. I have found the biggest problem thus far for my build is either

a) having starting mana. stuff like lotus petal, land grant, and esg. Two in hand is the best.
b) getting belcher in hand. Not much of a problem goldfishing, but fetching the 2nd or 3rd copies from the deck could present an issue against counters.
c) having the right color mana to cast things like welder/seething song(props to norm) AND rituals. getting the black and red mana can be tough.


I definately think the deck will be a force to be reckoned with, though.

[Peter_Rotten]

Let's stay on topic please.

Peter_Rotten

[spock]

ok, so i've golfished my own version, similar to those posted.
a)4gamble? its good when you're lucky. It's hard enough getting lucky with your first 7 cards. Random discarding sucks and its a 2 for 1 deal. Im probably cutting those.

b)I've tested serum powder and i like it a lot. I'm keeping 4 maindeck as of now

c)2 lands? i often run into a no cards in hand + belcher = only permanent and then i run into a random land. Note that my version only plays 1 bayou and still it is sometimes troublesome.

d)i kinda like seething song. Better than cabal ritual imo

e) i dont run nights whispers because i think they're not worth it. I'd rather have the serum powders and/or more mana accel and hope for THE hand than having to draw cards. You're losing a turn there most of the time.

f) haven't playtested the chromatic spheres but at first glance i think i won't like having to pay 2colorless for 1 colored. There has to be something else..


sorry if i sounded like i'm critisicing but its just my opinion. Just trying to give all the help i can. I'll post back when i get anything new.

[Artowis]

I agree w/ Gamble, but I found nothing better for the slots. Powder is intresting, tried it in the T1 build and it sucked, but it might be better now.

Seething Song costs 3, that makes it pretty much inviable in my mind, I'll try it though.

2 Lands is vs. the inevitable control deck massive h8 people are bound to pack. With 2 people you have much better odds not dying to random shit. Of course you run into a land more often in exchange, it's a hard trade-off.

Chrome Sphere's fix the fact that the mana is piss poor at making the right colors.

[FyndhornBrownie]

artowis, have you modified your list any? I found the original one to not be that great, but that was often just because the xantid swarms were bad. I use duress because it can grab a null rod, xantid swarm can't.

[Artowis]

Amazingly enough I have, again these are mostly thought tweaks and stuff from golldfishing. I've had no desire, past playing a few randoms on MWS, to really test the thing. :)

//NAME: Burning Heat - 3 Option Mix
// Mana
2 Eladamri's Vineyard
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
// Land
1 Bayou
// Broken Stuff
2 Living Wish
3 Tainted Pact
4 Gamble
4 Spoils of the Vault
// Burn j00 out.
4 Goblin Charbelcher
// Protection
4 Goblin Welder
4 Duress
// SB
1 Hunted Wumpus
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Uktabi Orang.
1 Gilded Drake
1 Scavenger Folk
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Gemstone Mine
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Oxidize

Right now all I've done is test out the Vineyards which seem to be really good, make a SB and I agree... in this format Duress is actually better than Xantid game 1. A scary thought, heh. Looking to replace Pact's possibly, but I'll ponder what... sometime later.

BTW, if your having problems getting the right mana, you may want to try out BoP. It was pretty good in T1 'budget' builds. =)



Edited By Artowis on 1094171732

[martyr]

I think LED is more likely to be banned, actually. Petal is only slightly more useful than ESG (and not at all in some circumstances), and Chrome and Diamond both have really harsh disadvantages.

LED, on the other hand, is more like to be the source that makes this deck tick. More often than not this is the card that activates the fatal belcher on turns 1-3, and they're not possible without it.

[Artowis]

I think LED is more likely to be banned, actually. Petal is only slightly more useful than ESG (and not at all in some circumstances), and Chrome and Diamond both have really harsh disadvantages.

LED, on the other hand, is more like to be the source that makes this deck tick. More often than not this is the card that activates the fatal belcher on turns 1-3, and they're not possible without it.

Your point? Or are you just posting for no reason?

[Zilla]

His point is that the deck is not likely to be nearly as strong without LED, and that they're likely to ban it. He's probably right.

What was the point of your post, Josh? :p

[Carlos El Salvador]

I think his point was to prove post 1 had no point, therefor viladating his point. Thus if post 1 had a point, his post had no point.

Aside from that, I think I know what cards need to go to make the moxen not insanely broken alogn with petal... but still give combo great speed and other things as well great power...

They are LED and Dark ritual.

[FyndhornBrownie]

actually, i found lotus petal to be one of the stronger accelerants in the deck, getting you any one of the three colors in the deck.

[Zilla]

The deck may still be under development, but it's a safe bet it's going to be one of the strongest decks in the new format, and has the benefit of months' worth of testing and development in Vintage to work from. Moved back to Open Forum. -Zilla

[Artowis]

His point is that the deck is not likely to be nearly as strong without LED, and that they're likely to ban it. He's probably right.

What was the point of your post, Josh?

Because LED being a key component is braindead obvious and if it'll be banned or not has no place here.

[edgewalker]

So I take it where gonna on for a long and awful combo winter like type 1?

[FyndhornBrownie]

no. I fully believe this deck is easily hateable, and thus will not be a huge concern. I don't think we will face a combo winter, not even close.

[Eclipt1c]

This deck will just be a worse Dragon, and that's about it.

[Ray D 3]

Hey did anyone think of taking this deck the control/mana severence route? It seems pretty pheasible to me. Asides for coping better with hate, it would likely beat this in the mirror. Kind of like the old spoils vs bug issue.

[Catacomb]

no. I fully believe this deck is easily hateable, and thus will not be a huge concern. I don't think we will face a combo winter, not even close.
It will be a defining deck of the format. Time will tell (and the next banning announcement). As for hate, Belcher won't give up that easily. Oxidize, Living Wish, Duress, and Goblin Welder are all strong maindeck choices. I'm not saying it's a strong defense, but it's enough to sway the game.

[Ray D 3]

In testing, It seems that a well placed chalice from a good aggro, or aggro control deck destroys the 2 land build. This deck is already not terribly consistant. The hate coming from rod and chalice is usually quite enough to buy the time to start beating you, making spoils more and more of a risk. Its just too hard to recover from this, especially when counter backup is involved. It seems to me that this deck is just too unstable. This is just like spoils dragon. Most people claimed BUG dragon was better, so I believe its a good idea to try to make it more stable.

[Negator0808]

This deck needs to run blue for Brainstorms, which are a staple in T1 versions, and Meditate to make up for the lack of Draw 7's.

1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 LED
4 ESG
4 Dark Ritual
4 Land Grant
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Meditate
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Living Wish
3 Goblin Welder
3 Xantid Swarm


I'm not sure how feasible the Welders are, they might be cut along with Wish for Tainted Pact or other draw.

[Artowis]

This deck needs to run blue for Brainstorms, which are a staple in T1 versions

Um. WHAT? Brainstorm isn't used it any version except the 2 land models, which are almost entirely inferior to the 1 land models. You notice how me and Gooba both run 1 land models at this point, because we don't want to deal with the complications.

Brainstorm is also very weak in a deck where not every card is a utter bomb and few shuffle effects.

[Negator0808]

Running two lands will rarely get in the way of a same-turn kill, and you get to run better cards. Gamble is just not strong enough IMO. Brainstorm lets you use the best cards out of your hand and the top three, which should be sufficient... and Meditate is amazing, basically no drawback.

[FyndhornBrownie]

I don't think brainstorm has any place in a deck where you are likely only searching for one specific card in the deck. I believe gamble is better, because it gets you the card when you need it. Plus, if you had a welder in play, you can weld the belcher in if you got unlucky with the gamble.

[CavernNinja]

@Ray if you want to talk about the Severence version then post in the correct thread. It's called Bob.deq.

I think that the thing that really needs to be found is a good way to protect the combo, a few things I've been looking at are Cabal Therapy, Suppress and Xantid Swarm. I'm not very likely to play Supress because of the high cc but Therapy seems really good. I think that Oxidize is necessary in the board but I don't think it is needed in the main as much as Therapy or Swarm.

[AngryTroll]

When this combos off, if somehow the first activation doesn't kill the opponent (stifle, hitting that one land, or that one other land, etc.) can the deck fire it off again the next turn, or is it pretty much out of steam by then? I have done zero testing, and I was just wondering. It seems that everything except the lands and chrome mox are one time only stuff.

[frogboy]

I have done zero testing

Therein lies your problem.

However, between Welders, permanent mana sources, and the fact that the deck can just y'know, topdeck mana or a tutor to get mana, it usually only saves a turn. Of course, sometimes it completely wrecks the Belcher player. Depends on luck.

[MindFlayerMagi]

EDIT: Note that this is a 1 land build. My testing has shown that you run into land less when Belching with 1 land, although a 2 land build I am currently testing is more consistent (focusing more on three colors instead of two with a splash of red).

I recently did 400 goldfish games with a build I made. I'm still working around with a new build that Glenchuy over on the WotC boards posted. Here are my results for my build:

Turn 1 ......... 41 ...... 10.25%
Turn 2 ......... 151 ..... 37.75%
Turn 3 ......... 149 ..... 37.25%
Turn 4 ......... 36 ...... 9%
Turn 5 ......... 8 ....... 2%
Fizzle/6+ ...... 15 ...... 3.75%

Run into land .. 12 ...... 3%
Used Welder .... 20 ...... 5%
Spoils Death ... 4 ....... 1%

That was with this deck:

Mana (41)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Tinder Wall
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritua
4 Eladamri's Vineyardl
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou

Kill (4)
4 Goblin Charbelcher

Tutor (6)
4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Plunge into Darkness

Utility (9)
4 Duress
3 Goblin Welder
2 Oxidize

With 2 more Oxidizes in the board, it can cope with Null Rod, but the Rod still gives it fits. CotV is also a pain. I'm testing a new version that runs two lands and has more of a red focus. So far it is much more consistent, but doesn't go off turn 1 as much. More turn 2 and turn 3, and less turn 4+ wins.

Just some of my results.

~MindFlayerMagi

[Peter_Rotten]

I have a very quick point that I'm not sure we have addressed yet. How bad is the Vineyard in the mirror match? I would guess that it is unplayable!

[CavernNinja]

Yes, I would have to say that Vineyard gets taken out in the mirror in exchange for something along the lines of Artifact Blast. I haven't gotten far enough in testing to even beging building a board tho.

[MindFlayerMagi]

Yeah, Vineyard is very bad. In goldfish, it works very nicely. But that is, well, goldfish. Currently, I'm testing a new build (by Glenchuy):

/NAME: Belcher 1.5 v2.6
// Mana (42)
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tinder Wall
4 Seething Song
4 Pentad Prism
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
// Win Condition (4)
4 Goblin Charbelcher
// Tutoring (6)
4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Plunge Into Darkness
// Utility (8)
4 Duress
4 Goblin Welder

It's less explosive, but it doesn't use Vineyard. It also fizzles out a lot less. Less turn 1 wins and turn 4+ wins, but much more turn 2 and 3 wins. I hope to be able to do some goldfishing followed by some actual playtesting to see if it works better vs. Null Rod than other versions.

Thoughts?

~MindFlayerMagi

p.s. Been thinking some things. If BBS comes back, like a few people are trying to do, then Carpet of Flowers or Seedtime might work in the board. Nothing like even more brokenness. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Should this thread be named just "Belcher" or "X-Land Belcher" instead of "2 Land Belcher"? Many 1 land builds are also springing up. Just a thought, as many of the decklists here are 1 land builds, and many others are 2 land builds.

[Ray D 3]

The deck needs more ways to protect the combo. I think the best choice is to try to fit in a playset of cabal therapy's. They will be less dead vs aggro than xantid swarms, and they can even hit stuff like rod and chalice of you go first. From what I have seen, the deck will roll over to control without the additional disruption.

[Artowis]

Four Duress and Goblin Welder with Oxidize, Xantid (and I'm trying Carpet of Flowers in the board) tends to be all I've needed thus far. (And by all I've needed, I mean all I could fit in w/o totally destroying the reamining consistency of the deck)

Carpet of Flowers actually solves some of the issues I've had with trying to beat control. By giving me non Null Rod disrupted mana sources and giving me more colored mana, it let's me keep up with my opponents resources better.



Edited By Artowis on 1094941292

[TxViper4]

Has anyone tried Birds MD? I've found they make the turn 2 kill incredibly consistent, and provide a lot of color-fixing. Here's the list I'm working on for reference:

4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Land Grant
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Tinder Wall
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Pentad Prism
2 Living Wish
2 Goblin Welder

1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island

SB:
2 Goblin Welder
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Bone Shredder
1 Pyrexian Negator
1 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Traitors
3 Oxidize

My deck runs a lot more color than most builds, having both Enlightened Tutors and Brainstorm, but with Birds, Pentad Prism, Chromatic Sphere, and Lotus Petal, I rarely have any mana issues. My testing with spoils didn't go very well...I found that against control they would just counter what I found anyway, and against aggro the life I lost would set me back a whole lot further than losing 1 turn to an Enlightened Tutor. The Tutor and Brainstorm seem much more consistent that either Spoils or Gamble.

Also- my meta (Houston) has a lot of aggro decks, and I've found that rather than split the fence vs aggro or control, I'd just SB the cards that I really need against control like the other 2 Welders, Swarms, and Therapys. Even then, in game one if you can bait them with a turn 2 Welder, a lot of times you can force out a Belcher and activate either that turn or the following- Birds make it really easy to find the 3 mana necessary.

Give it a try and let me know what you think

[LunchBox]

Belcher just got a little more ridiculous:

Desperate Ritual - 1R
Instant - Arcane
Add RRR to your mana pool.
Splice onto Arcane: 1R.

For TMD's discussion, check here: Red Ritual in CHK (http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19608)

Even though they're busting a nut over how powerful it could be in Type 1, it's just as strong in the new 1.5 since we can do many of the same things with all of the unbanned artifact mana.

[Carlos El Salvador]

It's better than seething song... maybe. It opnly produces 1 mana, when song produced 2. It should be interesting in t2. But in belcher, I'm not so sure if it's all that hot.

[LunchBox]

Anything that produces more mana than it costs is good in this deck (ie Cabal Ritual w/o Threshold, Tinder Wall, etc.). It only gets better if you have multiple Desperate Rituals in your hand and enough mana. Say you have 2 DespRits in your hand and four available mana:
Use 1R to pay for 1st DespRit and 1R more to splice = RRRRRR in pool.
Cast 2nd DespRit that you just Spliced = RRRRRRR.

That's enough for a casting and activation. I never said it was the hottest card ever, but it could be very strong. I'll do some Goldfishing and check it out.

[Garvman]

Right, but it's pretty good if you have 2 in your hand. I have decided that splice is alright now that I realize that you get to keep the spliced card in yout hand... woot!

[spock]

does anyone besides me like serum powder in this deck? I find it to be a tutor everytime you dont have a belcher in your opening hand. Downside is if you get stuck with it in hand you'll often lose a turn droping it for an extra mana the next turn. Anyways my testing is goldfish based..

[Artowis]

More useable rituals... and if you have 2 it creates exactly the amount of mana needed to play Belcher and activate it. ;) I'll have to try them out.

[DavidHernandez]

We have a player in our area who uses a Mono-Blue version of Belcher. I'm not sure what's in it, but Team Gro put together a 1.5 version that TMD User Ultima did well with in 1.5, and then we build it for Type 1 where Ultima used it to finish 5th at Waterbury (he won a Mox).

We put something like this together:

Blue Belcher Control (BBC)

24 Islands

4 Counterspell
4 Mana Drain (needs to be replaced: possibly Dissipate or Mana Leak)
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
3 Stifle
3 Mana Severence
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Intuition

3 Goblin Charbelcher

I think it still has potential. Mana Drain's are very important for acceleration, but maybe Mox Diamonds and Lotus Petals can make up some of this loss. Mana Leak and Dissipate can come in to take it's place (though they're not as strong).

Fact or Fiction could come in as a 4-of.

My whole point here is that you don't have to try for a turn one or two win. The deck can be played as a control deck.

Dave.

[Artowis]

It's not very good w/o Mana Drain. That was like the one card that made it viable w/o Tinker, at least all the versions I've tried of it.

[Carlos El Salvador]

It's true, my friend andy used to play belcher.deq to very good cucess, but without drain, it's bad.

[ForceofWill]

I"m starting to like serum powder a lot in belcher for two reasons 1. It helps thin away things that you don't need 2. It helps you to draw a hand with a belcher or one that will win turn 1-3.

Fixed visions/powder switch and deleted the following useless posts.

Peter_Rotten

[Ronin47]

Don´t you guys have problems drawing into your key components ?? I really favor builds with Brainstorm or Meditate, as most other builds lack draw completely, besides some tutors, which only get you 1 card needed.

Am I wrong, or am I playing this whole thing wrong, I can´t help it, but without some draw, I seem lost :)

[Garvman]

Even though it's a sorcery, I think Serum Visions is pretty damn good in this deck.

[Ronin47]

Well ???

Ok first if you are playing this in addition to Brainstorm it´s ok, ignore the rest of the post then.

Otherwise: Why would you bother playing a SORCERY which does not give you card advantage, which only improves your next draws and not the current one (I don´t hope there will that many draws which should be improved), which does not let you put back unusable cards in your hand, which does not save cards from Duress ... whereas Brainstorm can.

I don´t think it should be opted for at any tim!

[Artowis]

as most other builds lack draw completely, besides some tutors, which only get you 1 card needed.

??? You only need the Belcher... soo ummm... what are you talking about?

[Ronin47]

You only need the Belcher... soo ummm... what are you talking about?

sometimes u have the belcher, but not the mana. Never happened to you??

[Artowis]

Rarely unless we're talking about vs. Null Rod. It happens, but within a acceptable range.

Almost all the hands your keeping should be Belcher + 4 mana or more, Belcher + limited mana and a tutor for Ritual or LED, or lots of mana + tutor for Belcher.

[LinkXwing]

Rarely unless we're talking about vs. Null Rod. It happens, but within a acceptable range.

Almost all the hands your keeping should be Belcher + 4 mana or more, Belcher + limited mana and a tutor for Ritual or LED, or lots of mana + tutor for Belcher.
Quoted for truth and emphasis.

[troopatroop]

wow I just did 25 games of testing with the list a page back with 2 lands and the results were astonishing.

turn 1 wins: 0/25
turn 2 wins: 18/25
turn 3 wins: 4/25
turn 4 wins: 1/25
after turn 4 (fizzle):2/25

second turn wins were rediculous. Seriously. I'm so afraid of this deck right now... I might just have to start playing it.

[juventus]

which one?

[spock]

so, now that we have our red ritual what will the decklist look like?
i still run 4 serum powder and 1 land...

[Ronin47]

I´m actually running Artowis Version, with 1 land, which was displayed on the 2nd site of this thread I think.

I have to say, that I really like the deck. It´s absolutely nuts to play, and it´s so much better than in Vintage (Oh my God I did say that!) Although I miss the draw7 spells.

Now there is one problem I have with the list. I really hate the Tainted Pacts. I think they are terrible. Searching for Belcher with them is incredibly risky as it results in a Time Walk for the opponent if it fails, however, searching for mana is not any better, as it will most likely work, but it costs you 2 to play (if you have them to spare when wanting to cast a belcher) and so only LED and Ritual net you any mana.

Now I searched for alternatives. And as Wizards already unbanned all the overpowered goodies that enabled this deck I had to check if they unbanned Demonic Consultation. Now I just had to do it, it would have been so good :)

But what to use instead. I don´t really know, surely something like Brainstorm would be nice, or even Enlightened Tutor, but they add new Colors, which is defintively not possible.

Now I ask you, do you use Pact, if yes, what am I getting wrong, or if you don´t use it, what use instead.

[Artowis]

Yeah you really might want to just run Enlightened Tutor over Pact. They tend to work a lot better at fetching stuff, even if they are slightly harder to cast.

[Peter_Rotten]

Mox Diamond stupidity deleted.

[Ronin47]

I´m sorry, just looked at the wording on the card and on mtgnews.com, which I thought was the Oracle text. This would have allowed it, however the Oracle text prohibits it. Ok. I will check such things mor thoroughly in future.

[Bongo]

1) Is this deck really as scary as everybody says? Blue/White control, which will be a contender in the new meta, seems like a nightmare matchup. Unless tournament data proves me otherwise, I don't think this will get the artifact accelerants banned again.

2) I'm not a big fan of Tainted Pact and Gamble. Gamble is too random for my tastes and forces you to produce red mana. Aren't there any better searching options?

[Jander78]

1) Is this deck really as scary as everybody says? Blue/White control, which will be a contender in the new meta, seems like a nightmare matchup. Unless tournament data proves me otherwise, I don't think this will get the artifact accelerants banned again.

2) I'm not a big fan of Tainted Pact and Gamble. Gamble is too random for my tastes and forces you to produce red mana. Aren't there any better searching options?
I have been playtesting this lately and it is a freaking Monster!! If the opponent doesn't have a FoW or 1st/2nd turn Chalice/Null Rod, you will almost always win. It is that consistent. Goldfishing is insane.........Turn 1 shouldn't be allowed in this format as it is now faster than Dragon.

I also hate Tainted Pact, but it is effective in the deck. Being able to just Impulse into a decent card (it doesn't have to get "the" card you need) is a pretty good aspect of the card. Gamble I think is just horrible.

Here is the version I have been running:

Similar but a few minor changes:

4 Eladamri's Vinyard
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Tinder Wall
1 Bayou

4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Plunge into Darkness
3 Tainted Pact

4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Goblin Welder
4 Duress

[LunchBox]

Why do people still use Vineyard in this deck? In my goldfishing, Seething Song was always better since you got the mana NOW, not next turn. That and it won't help to accelerate RG Survival into Null Rod.

[Jander78]

Why do people still use Vineyard in this deck? In my goldfishing, Seething Song was always better since you got the mana NOW, not next turn. That and it won't help to accelerate RG Survival into Null Rod.
It's easier to come up with G to cast Vineyard to setup for turn 2 than it is to cast 2R. Getting Red mana itself is sometimes a problem as you only have 8 sources (4 Lotus Petal and 4 Tinderwall) to reliably gain red with. Otherwise you have to go through Chromatic Sphere. And if I'm making a combo deck, I want it to be reliable as possible without getting color screwed.

I also originally had 2 Vineyards and 2 Oxidise main deck instead of 4 Vineyards. But for more consistent goldfishing, 4 Vineyards works better. That doesn't make it the better card, just more reliable in goldfishing (which isn't reliable in itself)...



Edited By Jander78 on 1096575866

[Artowis]

Jander have you tried splashing white purely for a couple of E. Tutor's? I've been pleased with them in testing, the only thing is the deck can't support 4 w/o savannah. But I think 2 or so could be helpful.

[troopatroop]

Vineyard presents a really big temptation. It's really really sexy when you play it in goldfishing, but I'm sure that it will absolutely rape you in testing. Look at the facts, What does this deck hate more than anything really. Null rod, and giving them the neccesary mana on their first turn to cast it is pretty insane. I understand that it makes almost certain turn 2 kills... but It's flawed. It's too risky for me but then again, this is fuckin belcher! :laugh:

[Jander78]

Jander have you tried splashing white purely for a couple of E. Tutor's? I've been pleased with them in testing, the only thing is the deck can't support 4 w/o savannah. But I think 2 or so could be helpful.
I'm not sure. I'll give them a shot as they are a tutor for what you need. The only problem I have is that it is a white card. I already have enough trouble getting R for Welder. The only real source of white is going to be from Lotus Petal or screwing around with Chromatic Sphere. Still, it's worth testing.

Vineyard is a tough call. It makes the goldfish a consistant turn 2. In testing, it can be trouble. It is decent against control decks because they will probably only drop a Phid or Keg. Null Rod is a problem overall, but by the time they bring them in, you will probably swap Vineyard for Oxidize if you expect it. The biggest problem is against Survival decks. You pretty much just gave them 2 turns by dropping a Vineyard. It is an iffy card, but this is an iffy deck in general.

Only other thoughts would be something like Thran Turbine, but that card is complete crap as it only works for Belcher and Chromatic Sphere.

[Ronin47]

This is a more general Belcher question!

I thought about the difference between the 1 and 2 land versions. The 2 land mostly run Bayou + Taiga. What is the diofference in playing the 2 land version, do you fetch the bayou or the taiga, if you fetch the taiga, you risk running in another land ... You know the rest. Does the second land add so much resillience to the deck, or what about it.

I know most of you don´t play it, but the Vintage decks also run 2 often. I justr don´t seem to get it ??

[quicksilver]

I thought about the difference between the 1 and 2 land versions. The 2 land mostly run Bayou + Taiga. What is the diofference in playing the 2 land version, do you fetch the bayou or the taiga, if you fetch the taiga, you risk running in another land ... You know the rest. Does the second land add so much resillience to the deck, or what about it.

The point is that you run both black and red spells in the two land version, and depending on your openeing hand you may want either black or red.

[steppenelf]

it seems that as often as you can you would want to fetch the bayou so you get double damage when you do hit the taiga.

[FyndhornBrownie]

but sometimes you want the red for a welder or gamble, if you play gamble. To figure out which land to fetch, you should look at your hand overall and form a plan of playing cards before you play any, to minimize color screw and other such nonsense.

[juventus]

hopefully no one plays gamble at this point. It is just bad, you will 90% of the time lose something useful to it.

[anonymos]

I haven't had any trouble with gamble, but I also play conservatively and keep a good hand size until I go off, using the gamble first so I don't lose much. The deck is so redundant that you've got about a 12% chance of losing the card you tutored for (in a 6 card hand) with the rest being either more tutoring or acceleration.

[bigredmeanie]

What about sb? Im assuming a full compliment of oxidizes and xantid swarms, but what about everything else, bbs seems like it could give the deck problems if they are packing annuls in the sb as well as force and stiffle main deck. also something that completely beats this deck like a red headed step child is not null rod, though that hurts, its Trinisphere and with all the main deck vineyards, it would be easy for them to play one on their first set of double green.

I also dont like welder as a 4 of, this deck has iffy ways at best of getting red mana sources for welder, Ive cut 1, welder seems like more of a mid game cards for when you havent killed them by turn 4. also tainted pact seems absolutely horrible, id almost perfer gamble over it bc gamble is faster and there is about the same percent chance that the pact will fizzle before you got the belcher, as the gamble with 6 cards in hand will hit what you tutor for. Has anyone considered running a few Birds of Paradise not 4, but easily 2 or 3. try it, its sticks around which is not something that mana sources in this deck do.

[Ronin47]

hopefully no one plays gamble at this point. It is just bad, you will 90% of the time lose something useful to it.

now I would almost say youre right, but what would you play instead, imho you need those cheap tutors, and this one gets you the card you need, at a slight risk of losing it. I think that Pact is definitely the worst component of the tutors.

[strick09]

I agree with Ronin---

one thing to consider-- remember that one route to victory is:
turn 1: land grant, LED, tinder wall, pop wall for RR, welder, some 1-drop
turn 2: pop LED, weld in belcher

if used with gamble, you don't need to have belcher in-hand to cast it! it becomes:
turn 1: land grant, LED, tinder wall, pop wall for RR, welder, gamble for belch, discard a card (maybe belch, maybe not)
turn 2: pop LED, weld in belch, win.

It has good synergy with the current mechanics-- but you NEED to be running 4 welders so you can chrome one for red if necessary.

One problem I have run into is against U/W control...OUCH. heavy control REALLLLLLY puts the hurt on.
Another thing is with the deck occasionally stalling out. Sometimes you just keep drawing mana sources :/

One thing I *love* about this deck is the top-deck capabilities sometimes. Drop a chromatic sphere...pop it (with no red cards in hand) naming "red mana", and topdeck a welder. :D it's happened to me on numerous occasions.

[ForceofWill]

One problem I have run into is against U/W control...OUCH. heavy control REALLLLLLY puts the hurt on.
Another thing is with the deck occasionally stalling out. Sometimes you just keep drawing mana sources :/
And then xantid swarm and u/w control cries cause they either waste a counter on it. Or they have swords for swarm vs welder and fow for belcher.

[Ray D 3]

One problem I have run into is against U/W control...OUCH. heavy control REALLLLLLY puts the hurt on.
Another thing is with the deck occasionally stalling out. Sometimes you just keep drawing mana sources :/
This is why I say you need to run 4xCabal therapy.

Against control you just get to sit there continually raping their hand, and then, when they have no answers left, you can just kill them.

[FyndhornBrownie]

You can't rape control's hand if they counter your land grant, because you won't have a permanent mana source, so you won't have consistent black mana to cast discard. Land really helps this deck, but makes it slower sometimes.

also, I don't know how much of the deck can be cut for cabal therapy, but it would be cool to discard a therapy with a gamble.

[Ronin47]

What does your actual sideboards look like.

I don´t really see the point of some of the living wish targets there, for example the gilded drake... (I´m talking about Artowis list on page2 I haven´t seen any alterations to it, so I´m still sticking to it plays out quit nicely)

the only target that is really nice is the ancient Tomb.

[strick09]

What about running Cabal Therapies in place of the Duress's? Some reasons:
- It knocks out ALL of whatever card you fear
- you can flash it back by sac'ing Tinder Wall (or, in a pinch, Welder/ESG)
- It costs the same, and is same speed
- you still get to see their hand

Given that the deck is so fast, there are only a finite number of threats you really have to worry about (FOW/Null Rod/STP, etc.) I'm going to try it out and see how useful it is.

[ForceofWill]

you never sac a tinder wall if it's not for mana or else something is seriously wrong.

[Slay]

And you should never be casting an ESG or else something is seriously wrong.
-Slay

[anonymos]

has anyone actually figured out a good sideboard for this yet? I'm seeing a tendrils, oxidize, scrap, xantid swarm, and duress. I'm not sure exactly what else.

[strick09]

how viable is tendrils in this deck? Does it have enough cheap/free spells to really make it as reliable a kill as Type 1? I had toyed with the idea a while back, but wasn't too sure about it-- would be siding it in as a replacement for belcher, fearing artifact hate? Or just as a supplemental kill?

[Slay]

If your belcherbuild dies to artifact hate, you probbly aren't playing the deck right. Pretty much the only thing that can stop belcher from going off turn 2 is a ESG -> Null Rod or an Oxidize or a FoW. The only thing that can stop it from going off turn 1 is a FoW or an ESG -> Oxidize. Neither are very likely and with Duresses, you should be able to crush countermagic and such. I don't think tendrils should make the cut over two more search/mana spells.
-Slay

[strick09]

@Slay:
I've been teching the deck for a few weeks, and I definitely see it as quite the juggernaut 90% of the time... every once in a while, it stalls out-- i don't think it's a matter of me not playing it correctly, it just doesn't get the draw that it needs (or the only tutor spell in my opening hand gets dazed/FOW'd). I'll just top-deck over and over again through mana sources. Any thoughts on changes to prevent this?

A general question for everyone: Does anyone have some mulliganing guidelines for opening hands? I mean obviously keeping an opening hand that can just win immediately of course, but whatabout the sketchy hands that look sexy but risky? Is there a rule of thumb to mulligans for belch?

[disrupted]

4 LED
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Chrome mox
4 Welder
3 Mystical Tutor
2 Mana Severance
2 Oxidize
1 Artifact Mutation
4 Belcher
3 Mox Diamond
1 Unearth
1 Regrowth
4 Fact or Fiction

2 Volcanic island
4 Island
4 Polluted delta
5 Swamp
2 Bayou
3 Wasteland

SB
4 BTB
4 Xantid Swarm
4 BEB
3 Meta slots [Probably Contagion for Goblins]

Red is a problem for this deck. But why lose to going second to a deck with Duress, Nullrod, or ESG, Nullrod. Or BBS with too many counters and Stifles?

This is probably the wrong place to post this, however I think One land or two land combo is too easily metagamed against. So I post this a first pass at porting over the Mana Severance from Extended to 1.5.

If this is the wrong spot for this rebuttal/challenge to the Belcher Archtype my apologies.

It is. Start a new thread with a very well developed post if you wish to discuss that list

Peter_Rotten

[ForceofWill]

This isn't that deck. This is 1/2 Land belcher the one that wins on turns 1-3.
And no it isn't easily meta gamed against. I watched dragon without bazaars in the old format break through 15 sideboards and not have problems winning turn 2/3.

[disrupted]

What does Dragon with Duress have to do with two land Belcher?

Null rod can be run by any deck. Duress followed by cabal therapy which many decks can run rip out your early non artifact mana sources. Force Spike, Daze, FOW stop land grant. Two land Belcher is good but not rock solid. It is not Dragon.

[ForceofWill]

Red is a problem for this deck. But why lose to going second to a deck with Duress, Nullrod, or ESG, Nullrod. Or BBS with too many counters and Stifles?

What does Dragon with Duress have to do with two land Belcher

You said that these kind of decks can't beat lots of hate. I used an example of old dragon and how I"ve watched Allan (scrumdogg) Sideboard 12+ sideboard cards that stop the combo and still lose.

My point is that the deck can play through the hate.

[CavernNinja]

Dragon was a much better deck than Belcher...Dragon had a solid draw engine, had a source of disruption, could support multiple atempts to win the game, etc. Belcher on the other hand is much more fragile without a source of draw as powerful as Bazaar/Squee was.

[kirdape3]

Belcher is the ultimate 100 or 0 deck. You will literally get hands that you can't possibly lose with against any opponent, and at the same time you will get hands that you can't possibly win with even after mulligans. I won't play a deck like that - but it is a way for an inferior opponent to win against stronger ones.

[Peter_Rotten]

it is a way for an inferior opponent to win against stronger ones.
Don't take this to an extreme. There is a certain amount of skill level to playing Belcher although I believe much of that would be found in deciding what hands to keep and what to mulligan. Plus, I'm sure there are some tougher decisions to make against control... what to bait and what to expect to be countered.

That being said, I think that your statement rings true on some levels. I started thinking that maybe WotC really messed up on this one. Is this really a deck that we want in our format? It truely is that "flip of a coin" deck that is not suposed to exist in Magic. It removes many levels of skill from the game (I know I seem to have contradicted myself here) and boils the game down to turn two or three.

The deck has been repeatedly compared to Dragon, but I think it is worse for the format than Dragon ever was (and I still don't think that Dragon was bad for the old format).

<ul>
1. It wins on turn two more than Dragon ever did.
2. Dragon required a good deal of skill to pilot. Granted, much of this skill was found in avoiding hate, but Dragon contained many intricate stack tricks. Tricks to Belcher? None. Plus Dragon hated to see Wasteland, which most decks were packing.
3. Dragon hate was easy to pack and could be cast on turn one (Crypt), and still be effective. Belcher hate is not as easy to find. If Belcher is going first, you may never have a chance to cast your Null Rod. It may also be too late to have Chalice be effective since your opponent has had one single turn to empty his hand of the artifact mana.
4. Is there any such thing as a close game when playing Belcher? Like Kird said, "100 or 0."
[/list]
Even though the deck is not putting up the numbers yet - and it may never - I don't think that it is healthy for the format.

[Braves54321]

The deck has been repeatedly compared to Dragon, but I think it is worse for the format than Dragon ever was (and I still don't think that Dragon was bad for the old format).



1. It wins on turn two more than Dragon ever did.
2. Dragon required a good deal of skill to pilot. Granted, much of this skill was found in avoiding hate, but Dragon contained many intricate stack tricks. Tricks to Belcher? None. Plus Dragon hated to see Wasteland, which most decks were packing.
3. Dragon hate was easy to pack and could be cast on turn one (Crypt), and still be effective. Belcher hate is not as easy to find. If Belcher is going first, you may never have a chance to cast your Null Rod. It may also be too late to have Chalice be effective since your opponent has had one single turn to empty his hand of the artifact mana.
4. Is there any such thing as a close game when playing Belcher? Like Kird said, "100 or 0."


On these points:
1. It also can win on turn 1 a decent percentage of the time which dragon couldn't.
2. I don't agree with this statement at all. I believe belcher is as tough if not tougher to pilot. Dragon's stack tricks were meh while this deck requires some stacking w/lions eye diamond and also the mulligan/what to put on chrome mox, etc make this deck tougher to play imo. (Some of us didn't have a tough time playing dragon and have to side out win conditions to make room for sb cards vs little kids Matt [glare] )
3. Dragon could plow through hate and play the long game vs control. Belcher can also plow through hate due to its speed but also almost always loses to anything that plays force of will.
4. I agree with this statement.

[NavyJoe]

Hello, this is my first post, so I figured I would post it on the deck I love playing. I play on MWS (Joe) and I play this deck along with Salvager/LED deck. Belcher is just an awesome deck. I would post my decklist, but I don't have it with me at work. I just wanted to make a few comments.

Gamble - I like the idea of Gamble, especially if Welder is in the deck. But 4 is a bit much. I think I'm going to try 3 out in the deck.
Plunge Into Darkness - This is the card I use now instead of Gamble. Plunge is a good psuedo tutor. But the 1B cost has had me wishing it was a Vault.
Cabal Therapy vs Duress - Now while the easy money is on Duress. I actually have 3 Duress and 2 Therapy in the deck for the simple fact that if I'm stuck at 5 mana and have Belcher in hand and Welder in play. I could just Therapy myself for Belcher and Welder it into play.
Living Wish - I tried the wish route where I had various different lands and critters in my s/b. Some included Maze of Ith, the R/B/G Lair Land, Monkey, Welder, etc.
Jeweled Amulet - Is there a reason nobody uses this card but me? I think it so much faster than Sphere.
Pentad Prism - Is anyone still playing this. I'm starting to find this card a dead card more times than none. I might replace with Seething or the new Red Ritual.

Consistency of this deck. The only inconsistent part of this deck that has hurt me is suicide via Spoils. My s/b right now, I do remember that part

4 Orim's Chant - Most Control Players won't see this coming. With the abundance of "any color" mana in the deck, this is not a problem.
4 Sex Monkeys - Mirror and such
4 Oxodize - More Artifact Hate
1 Duress - Control
2 Cabal Therapy - Control

[strick09]

I could just Therapy myself for Belcher and Welder it into play.
Cool play, I hadn't thought of that. :) I forgot Therapy said "target player"


Jeweled Amulet - Is there a reason nobody uses this card but me? I think it so much faster than Sphere.
Jeweled Amulet is a cool card, but it's strictly worse than Chrom Sphere because it's essentially just as slow, but it doesn't replace itself with a card draw (which believe me, is *HUGE*..I've won games because of the extra card). However I'm not against playing them in lieu of something else.. is it feasible to do this?


Consistency of this deck. The only inconsistent part of this deck that has hurt me is suicide via Spoils.
Sadly, I must agree with you here. There have been many games where I've "Had it" and then lost because of a 20-life spoils (and sometimes the 4 cards I was looking for weren't even in the top THIRTY cards!). In some ways Plunge is a better investment because you know it won't directly kill you, but at the same time, I've spoils for a card and found it three down before. It's, as you said, inconsistent. That's the risk of playing this deck! When i play against people for the first time (during practice) I'll say "someone is losing by turn three, and it's hopefully not me."

Has anyone thought of final fortune in this deck? Would it be necessary, or is it "Win More"? It seems to definitely be in the spirit of the deck... and if you're reeeeally close to winning it might be enough to just win the game for you... any thoughts?

[ForceofWill]

I actually have 3 Duress and 2 Therapy in the deck for the simple fact that if I'm stuck at 5 mana and have Belcher in hand and Welder in play. I could just Therapy myself for Belcher and Welder it into play.
I've seen someone actually theropy themselves and drop rootwallas. :D


Anyway I"ve had matches against goblins where it came down to a turn they either killed me next turn or I went off.

[gregg]

what about death wish? has anyone considered that?

[FyndhornBrownie]

I don't see it's usefulness at all, outside of wishing for a belcher and saccing an led in response.

Also, if belcher was put in the sideboard for it, spoils would kill much more often with only 3 copies of belcher in the deck.

I just think it costs too much mana to use.

[kaervek]

you can't use led to pay for anything other than the activation of the belcher, wizards errata has destroyed all chance of using LED to pay for spell costs.

It has been errata'ed to instead of Play this ability as a mana source, play this ability any time you could play an instant.

So while still being great, it got a bit less useful.

[xenoq]

you can't use led to pay for anything other than the activation of the belcher, wizards errata has destroyed all chance of using LED to pay for spell costs.

It has been errata'ed to instead of Play this ability as a mana source, play this ability any time you could play an instant.

So while still being great, it got a bit less useful.

You can infact sac LED for whatever color with spoils (or a wish) on the stack, and pound the mana on the resulting card.

[kaervek]

forgot about that.

Thanks
croc

Please keep this sort of thing to PM in the future. It's considered spam. -Zilla



Edited By GodzillA on 1098180741

[ForceofWill]

There have been times where I dropped double LED casted spoils popped both LEB and spoiled for belcher casting it with LED mana.

[Carlos El Salvador]

Do you want teh prize, how do you win with 1 mana in pool, you need at least a ritual in the situation above, force, or else belcher can sit out there for who knows how long until you can win.

[Alfred]

I'm Alfred from TMD, and we have been testing out a sort of disruptionless, non-resiliant, balls-to-the-wall style of charbelcher deck that attempts to raise the turn one win percentage to it's highest possible level. This is what we have come up with:

Mana: 45
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 LED
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Land Grant
3 Pentad Prism
4 ESG
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

Tutors: 11
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Plunge Into Darkness
3 Gamble

Belchers: 4
4 Goblin Charbelcher

What we are trying to do over at TMD is just push Charbelcher to it's logical extreme, i.e. win ASAP. This way you can dodge lots of hate that could possibly screw belcher over. We do need help developing this idea, and it would be great if you guys could help us out! Just try to raise the first turn win percentage as high as possible :)

[Peter_Rotten]

Well, so far Belcher's greatest enemy has been FoW and friends. Making it faster does little for its weaker matches. I believe that you may be trying to reinvent the wheel here. Belcher is fast enough against non-control decks. Control is the problem for Belcher, so why not work on that match? Are you at least considering a semi-transformational SB of Duress, Xantid Swarm, Goblin Welder so that you can at least battle control?

[Alfred]

That is indeed what we were planning on doing. The whole ASAP idea is so that when going second you can avoid shitty things like e.tutor -> Null Rod, Null Rod, meddling mage, 2 mana counterspells etc. When going first, you can totally ream even FoW control decks a lot of the time because they won't know what you are playing (they won't paris into FoW). Also going first and winning first turn takes away any non-FoW way of the opponent stopping you. If you could get the firtst turn win % up to around 50%, would you play that deck?

[Artowis]

That build is awful, your going to fizzle out way more often with random 4,000 mana source draws. And even when you do draw the right set of cards, unless you get Rits or LED like the normal build, you still won't be able to go off on turn 1 very often.

Basically tuning it 'balls to the wall' doesn't work. You run out of even sub-optimal cards to run.

[Alfred]

Please explain the logic behind saying that running more fast mana, and more tutors is going to make you fizzle more. This simply doesn't make sense, because that is how belcher works.

More fast mana + More tutors = better chance of going off.

Think about it this way Vegeta, have you ever wondered whether you would have won first turn if your welder or duress was another tutor or mana source? Because I have.

(Posted this on TMD)
In this deck your starting hand will be on average:

3/4 mana
~1/5 tutor
~1/20 charbelcher

So:

Around 5 cards in your hand will be mana.
Around 1 1/2 cards will be a tutor.
A little less than half the time, you will get a belcher in hand.

Like:
1x Land grant
1x Dark ritual
1x Lotus Petal
2x Seething Song
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Spoils of the Vault

Does that seem like a common hand? It's a first turner! Note also, then when you have belcher in your opening hand, your chances of winning first turn are MUCH higher than with the current builds. Not to mention the fact that second turn kills become more common as well.

[Artowis]

Here's the simple logic, it doesn't matter how many mana sources you run on the whole, if your already drawing 4-5 every hand with 30+. The logic behind running 3/4th's of the deck is just begging to draw 5-7 mana sources way more often, which is worthless unless one card happens to be the Belcher.


more tutors

Um what? You run -less- tutors than the normal Belcher build. [glare] Play your own deck that was listed, you get a lot of all-mana draws and are hoping for a TD.



Think about it this way Vegeta, have you ever wondered whether you would have won first turn if your welder or duress was another tutor or mana source?

Not really, because I know with Welder or Duress I'm not always losing to first turn FoW, Annul, Null Rod, etc.


The rest

Hi-ho. Again I point out that without Dark Ritual or LED you weren't going to win the game turn 1. Very little of that extra mana was usually castable turn 1. That's why I gave up on Seething Song after testing it for a while. Look at the example you gave, change Dark Ritual into another Petal, a Desperate Ritual, pretty much anything else. You notice you can't get the R/B on turn 1 to win. -That- is what I mean.

I've tried that build and similar extreme builds, they just aren't very good and do nothing to solve the problems that plague Belcher. Trying to outrace the hate just isn't going to work here. Even the T1 build is barely fast enough to race hate consistently and it's still considered a luck-based deck, because it can't get higher than 40-45% for a turn 1 win.



Edited By Artowis on 1098478417

[Alfred]

The logic behind running 3/4th's of the deck is just begging to draw 5-7 mana sources way more often, which is worthless unless one card happens to be the Belcher.


This doesn't make sense, because I'm not taking tutors or belchers to add more mana, I'm taking out welder and duress. In the case you just mentioned i.e. drawing all mana, subbing in duress and welder won't make a difference. Running more acceleration makes the deck MORE consistant, not less, because then you more often have the mana to cast belcher, if not on the first turn, then on the second.



Um what? You run -less- tutors than the normal Belcher build. Play your own deck that was listed, you get a lot of all-mana draws and are hoping for a TD.

Artowis
2 Living Wish
3 Tainted Pact
4 Gamble
4 Spoils of the Vault

You have exactly the same number of Goblin Charbelcher-finders as I do, 11. EVERY OTHER LIST on this site has less tutors than my build, so what you said is wrong, obv. Again, adding mana instead of welder and duress does not change whether you get screwed off the draw. Remeber, without belcher duress and welder do not help you go off, leaving you in the same position.



Hi-ho. Again I point out that without Dark Ritual or LED you weren't going to win the game turn 1. Very little of that extra mana was usually castable turn 1. That's why I gave up on Seething Song after testing it for a while. Look at the example you gave, change Dark Ritual into another Petal, a Desperate Ritual, pretty much anything else. You notice you can't get the R/B on turn 1 to win. -That- is what I mean.


Put lotus petal in and you win the next turn. So what if you need LED or Dark Ritual to win first turn? The point is is that I am trying to make a deck that wins MORE CONSISTANTLY on turn one & two than the others by sacrificing some resiliancy.

Also, with a belcher in hand, this deck can much more effectively crank out a turn one win than any other deck I've seen on this site.

[Artowis]

In the case you just mentioned i.e. drawing all mana, subbing in duress and welder won't make a difference.

This is true, but as I state in the next post... your not just losing that.



You have exactly the same number of Goblin Charbelcher-finders as I do, 11. EVERY OTHER LIST on this site has less tutors than my build, so what you said is wrong, obv. Again, adding mana instead of welder and duress does not change whether you get screwed off the draw. Remeber, without belcher duress and welder do not help you go off, leaving you in the same position.

So you took my inf. old list and are comparing it to a new one? GJ, have you ever thought I maybe CHANGED it? obv. I run 15 now FYI. See instead of doing something like not fix the underlining problem of not being able to find a Belcher, I simply added more tutors (And BETTER ones than gamble) to the deck.

Welder and Duress help in actual games, not goldfish. So I can't really compare them to your example, though the times I've needed more mana is few and far between. =/



Put lotus petal in and you win the next turn. So what if you need LED or Dark Ritual to win first turn? The point is is that I am trying to make a deck that wins MORE CONSISTANTLY on turn one & two than the others by sacrificing some resiliancy.

Because you changed your example. I know you had Plunge Into Darkness there before, which meant you'd only win with that exact set of cards. -_-

It's stupid though. Your increasing your goldfish rate by not that much and by sacrificing 'some' resiliancy, you mean ALL OF IT. What's the point of playing the deck when you auto-lose to literally every control deck just by them mulling into FoW? And this is on top of the deck losing to itself!

[Alfred]

Um what? You run -less- tutors than the normal Belcher build. Play your own deck that was listed, you get a lot of all-mana draws and are hoping for a TD.


So you took my inf. old list and are comparing it to a new one? GJ, have you ever thought I maybe CHANGED it? obv. I run 15 now FYI. See instead of doing something like not fix the underlining problem of not being able to find a Belcher, I simply added more tutors (And BETTER ones than gamble) to the deck.

#1. I'm not psychic. OBV. I couldn't have known about this "normal" list, because it's not in this thread.
#2. I'm offended when someone says that my list contains less tutors than a "normal" build, especially when there is no "normal" build that has more for me to compare it to.
#3. Also, not only did I compare my deck to your old list, I compared it to every other build and showed yours because it was the only one that came close to having as many tutors as mine. Thus proving what you said was wrong.
#4. In all honesty, please tell me what that tutor is, I am very curious (it better not be rhystic tutor).



It's stupid though. Your increasing your goldfish rate by not that much and by sacrificing 'some' resiliancy, you mean ALL OF IT. What's the point of playing the deck when you auto-lose to literally every control deck just by them mulling into FoW? And this is on top of the deck losing to itself!

Not only does adding more mana acceleration make the deck faster, it also reduces the amount of hands that you have to throw away because they are too shitty. For example, look at the hand that I just showed you, how retardedly useless would that hand be if you had duresses or goblin welders instead of the seething songs? It would be pretty damn bad. The build that I have is more focused in nature, and thus will have to mulligan less. That's very useful.

In regards to the second part of that comment, during the first game there is no reason that FoW packing opponents would know to mulligan into a FoW. And before second game, I would encourage you to sideboard in anti-FoW tech.

This basically boils down to consistancy/speed vs. resiliancy. I am firmly in consistancy/speed camp.



That build is awful, your going to fizzle out way more often with random 4,000 mana source draws.

Your first quote



Quote
In the case you just mentioned i.e. drawing all mana, subbing in duress and welder won't make a difference.


This is true, but as I state in the next post... your not just losing that.


So, you basically just rushed into bashing the deck without really thinking about it. I'm not a moron, and I've tested this deck out quite a bit, and I feel that it has certain distinct advantages over the conventional lists.

[Slay]

Can someone explain to me why going off first turn and praying the other guy doesn't have a FoW is better than Duressing away the potential FoW the first turn and then going off the second turn?

Also, can someone explain to me the presence of a Pentad Prism when you're trying to go off first turn?
-Slay

[Alfred]

So you took my inf. old list and are comparing it to a new one? GJ, have you ever thought I maybe CHANGED it? obv. I run 15 now FYI. See instead of doing something like not fix the underlining problem of not being able to find a Belcher, I simply added more tutors (And BETTER ones than gamble) to the deck.

Another problem I'm having with this post is that as I showed earlier 11 tutors is probably around the optimal number:

Around 5 cards in your hand will be mana.
Around 1 1/2 cards will be a tutor.
A little less than half the time, you will get a belcher in hand.

Why would you want to have 2 tutors in your hand at the beginning of the game??? That's sort of a dead card, as the only thing I could think of tutoring for is charbelcher. If you're going to tutor for mana acceleration, why don't you just run more mana acceleration? If on the other hand you are tutoring for resiliancy, you have probably just wasted a whole bunch of one shot mana sources doing so.

Okay, you have 15 tutors...
I assume you are also running duress and welder as 4 ofs...
Plus 4 goblin charbelchers.....

15 + 8 + 4 = 27

60 - 27 = 33 mana sources

So approxamitely 3.5 cards in hand are going to be mana sources. So around half the time when you get 3 mana sources, I couldn't really see you going off that well. Or have you leaned a bit in my direction and taken out some of the resiliancy?

EDIT:
@Slay

Pentad Prism not only helps out turn two kills, it changes 2 mana color for the cost of a card.

[Artowis]

Fine, whatever. Think what you want.

BTW, it's E. Tutor. It's the best tutor for this deck, but not for your version since I use it mainly to set up turn 2 kills.



#1. I'm not psychic. OBV. I couldn't have known about this "normal" list, because it's not in this thread.


#2. I'm offended when someone says that my list contains less tutors than a "normal" build, especially when there is no "normal" build that has more for me to compare it to.

And I'm offended when someone takes some old ass build I have and insults me with some stupid ass remark. "OBV" [glare]


Thus proving what you said was wrong.

And I have to explain that I'm working off my own list and hence from my perspective I'm not wrong. I barely keep track of what these other people are doing.


For example, look at the hand that I just showed you, how retardedly useless would that hand be if you had duresses or goblin welders instead of the seething songs?

...your joking right? You call that hand useless? For pure goldfishing that's the only time that hand would be straight up bad.

I'd play that hand. Sure I can't win on turn one, but that's a FINE hand. I have a LG, Ritual, 2 other mana sources and a tutor. (And then I have Duress, Welder or both) :| It's perfectly reasonable that I could go off turn 3 w/ protection. That races aggro and gives me good odds on beating control.

Edit to the double post:


Why would you want to have 2 tutors in your hand at the beginning of the game???

o_o Because it allows you to fetch a 2nd Belcher, Duress or LED/Ritual if you need too. Also since the entire deck is dependent on getting Belcher, I much rather constantly have a tutor in my hand, even if sometimes I have a 2nd one.



I assume you are also running duress and welder as 4 ofs...

No, but good try anyways.



So approxamitely 3.5 cards in hand are going to be mana sources. So around half the time when you get 3 mana sources, I couldn't really see you going off that well. Or have you leaned a bit in my direction and taken out some of the resiliancy?


I get 4 or 5 usually. Usually if I have 3 I'll mull unless I have a set-up to find Belcher or if I have Belcher, more mana accel. I don't mind tutoring for mana stuff, because I'm not trying to go off on turn 1 usually. And for those times I don't have the belcher, I rather have the tutor for sure.



Edited By Artowis on 1098488330

[Alfred]

Right, so then you took out some uneeded resiliancy, unlike most of the other lists here. Plus, 1.5 tutors in the opening hand is probably just fine statistically, especially when you also factor in drawing the belcher itself. Okay, look. We're obviously just spinning our wheels here, as I don't see any type of progression in this argument.

The reason I decided originally to persue this version of the deck is because in the meta where I have been playing i.e. MWS, I was constantly being foiled by decks packing null rod, and was being plagued by not being able to go off consistantly until too late in the game, i.e. turns 4-5. I do have a sideboard for control matchups, which does include Goblin Welder. Another good SB card that I would recommend is Crash.

I'll be the first to stop this argument by asking to see your decklist. Needless to say, I'm interested.

EDIT: Also, this deck is really good in the mirror match.

[Artowis]

Actually I'l justl ask. What are your testing results vs. competent control players? Mine results aren't usually positive, (more like 30-40% range depending on who and what deck) but they aren't god awful either.


Right, so then you took out some uneeded resiliancy

Slight difference from taking out -all- of it. Heh. But ok, I'll end this discussion.

My list:
//NAME: Burning Heat - 3 Option Mix
// Mana
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
// land
1 Bayou
// Broken Stuff
3 Tainted Pact
4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Spoils of the Vault
// Burn j00 out.
4 Goblin Charbelcher
// Protection
3 Goblin Welder
3 Duress
// SB
SB: 1 Goblin Welder
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 2 Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 4 Oxidize
SB: 4 Xantid Swarm

The SB I haven't tinkered with in a bit, but yea, that's what it looks like for now. Same thing if Pact is better than Gamble. Gamble is way better for racing, but it's randomness is... just that randomly crippling.

[Alfred]

Well it really depends, I can usually beat control decks like Turboslaver, either by winning before they get a null rod into play or boarding in oxidizes (or crashes, I can't make up my mind). The U/x Control decks are hit or miss, mostly miss though. The problem is FoW obviously, and 2 mana counterspells to a lesser extent, though I have been able to win pre-board a couple of times before. Post board, I board in xantid swarms and welders for desperate ritual and 2 cabal rituals. This makes the matchup somewhat better, but it is still a less than positive matchup. My win percentage I would say is around your percentages, but I haven't been keeping track, really.

Also, how has tainted pact been working out for you? I can understand it's utility in a deck with few lands, but how often does it just fuck up? And also, I would honestly take out some of the tutors, I have never really needed more than one in my opening hand, and 11 gives you more than ample opportunity of getting one in the opening hand (You will draw on average 1.8 tutors and/or belchers in each opening hand).

Seething song for me has been just incredible, it's basically like another dark ritual for the deck, because it nets you 2 mana upon casting and though it does cost 3 mana, you will be getting up to three mana if you ever hope on casting the belcher.

[HPC]

Can you explain why you'd run Crash when you're only runing 1 mountain? Wouldn't Shattering Pulse, Oxidize or Artifact Blast be better? Artifact blast would be nice against the mirror.

[Artowis]

Pact works alright, pretty much like I wrote earlier. No I won't go to 11 tutors because 15 is more consistent / effective for me and Seething Song has sucked for me so I'm not running it. I can cast Belcher just fine, I don't have to 'hope' to do it. ???

Oh last thing, I really don't care. I only posted my build because you asked, don't expect stuff to change magically because anyone suggested squat.



Edited By Artowis on 1098517060

[anonymos]

how hard is it to get the white for the tutors? I've been pondering the idea, but am not ballsy enough for it. Hence I play 2 land.

[strick09]

the build i play uses 4x Pentad Prisms in lieu of 4x Vineyard. Playing Enlightened Tutor wouldn't be difficult to do between the pentads and the chromatics.

I had debated it myself but hadn't really thought about specifically how to really abuse it. The fact it doesn't go in-hand kind of hurts, but it could potentially be a nice turn 2 kill. There's always the possibility of using a chromatic sphere (you'd need two spheres if the sphere is your source for white) to draw the belcher you just put on top. just a thought...

[R4tX0r]

Has anyone thought about chalice of the void for two?? as a better matchup against control and decks packing null rod??

[hellfire1134]

Has anyone thought about chalice of the void for two?? as a better matchup against control and decks packing null rod??
If you are getting four mana you want to do something else with it. Like playing Belcher or getting Belcher. ALso the best counterspell is FoW which is five mana. SO you will never stop FoW.

[DeathwingZERO]

I've been playtesting this deck quite a bit, and have come to the conclusion that the deck itself needs to be tooled from the maindeck to fight control, and not rely on the sideboard (or a little 0/1 scrub, for that matter). Out of several matchups, especially in tournaments, my only issue about the deck is if I see blue mana hit on the opponents side of the board. The deck itself can combo off either turn 1 or turn 20, as long as I'm not at 0 life, nothing else matters.

The deck's consistency level with Gamble is complete and utter shit, unless of course you feel like relying on Welder. My current deck might frighten a ton of people, but it's basically putting in a little of everything to test out which tutors and mana sources I've liked best. This is in no way a complete deck, as I've still considered it far from narrowing down which tutors I like better.

Mana:
2 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Land Grant
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

Land:
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

Protection:
4 Goblin Welder
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

Tutors:
4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Plunge Into Darkness
2 Desperate Research

Kill:
4 Goblin Charbelcher

Sideboard: (Subject to change, currently geared fully vs control)
4x Defense Grid
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Naturalize
3x Oxidize

There's obviously going to be some criticism, but I'll give reasoning for choices:

Birds of Paradise- Much better than running the other 2 Tinder Wall and 2 Eladamri's Vineyard. Against control matchups, my opponents have almost always gotten more use out of the Vineyard than I have. Turn 1 Fact or Fiction followed by Chalice for 0/1 is never a good thing to run into. Plus, with the deck technically going 4 color with white's addition of Enlightened Tutor, it was just a much better choice. *Replaced 2 Tinder Walls and 2 Vineyard

Duress/Cabal Therapy- These have been considered staples of decks packing black against control, so there's no reason why this deck shouldn't pack them as well. It's been doing very little harm packed maindeck, as opposed to the amount of hand disruption it's worked against control players, as well as slowing down early threats from aggro/other combo (Survival, or other useful stuff I can't deal with easily when it hits table, etc). *Swapped out 1 Duress to add in Therapy, and can't remember what the other 2 Therapy replaced.

Enlightened Tutor- Arguably my favorite of the tutors. There's no reason the deck can't pack this card, with the 8 ways of getting white mana (Birds and Spheres), and using upkeep to topdeck your win condition, counting a majority of the targets of the tutors are artifacts anyways. *Replacement for Gamble's 1 and 2.

Desperate Research- Overall much more useful than Tainted Pact, even though it's a sorcery. Being able to possibly pull out multiples of the card you want (as opposed to one), or just digging 7 cards at its worst, it's going to be useful in either case. *The replacement for Gamble's 3 and 4.

Plunge Into Darkness- This was originally my replacement for Tainted Pact, and with Tinder Wall, and Birds, it's got it's uses for backup if you can afford the extra black to Entwine it. Roughly hits the same depth as Desperate Research, as I typically can put 5-8 life into it without much worry.

Spoils of the Vault- This one quite possibly might be the one getting cut down, if not just cut out. My deck wants consistency, not rediculous speed. I haven't needed a tutor when going off on turn 1, and seldomly are any needed. Not to mention with the risk of bad card placement, while I've only died to a "suicide" hit of 20 twice in all the tournaments I've tested it at, there's been many times it's dug 12-15 cards and left me with less than 20 in the deck, while removing my Taiga.

The deck really has no big worries other than it's obvious discontent for a control matchup, and if any other decks try to side in Chalice or Null Rod, it's got it's ways of getting them out of the way. I prefer to go with a more steady and slower rate against control, rather than forcing myself to try to bust out on turn 1 or 2, and then just sit there and watch myself die slowly to getting pummeled by Factories and Faeries, or a Tog laughing in my face. Since the deck doesn't try to rely on Spoils as much as the other tutors, I get a lot more control over my life total.

Also: Note that this deck is still very, very early in developmental stages. While I do say that this has been much better to me in a relatively control dominated area, it's in no way an answer to it's obvious problems with facing decks like Landstill, U/W Control, or Tog. Before you flat out say a card is horrible, or has no use, playtest it a couple of times. My average tutor count is roughly 10-12, so there's obviously room for changing things around. I've gone over the deck 4 times with various revisions, and this one so happens to be the current that I'm happiest with the results. Once I narrow down the tutors to what I feel are optimal, I'll post a finalized version.

[No_Life_No_Future]

Hey Guys... I have been thinking about the deck a bit and I thought it could use some decent draw.

I pretty much rulled out the use of blue in this deck because of how tight the mana base already is.

so.......

I found a card that seems to fit fairly well in the mana base if you are running Cabal and Dark Ritual.

Its Necrologia (http://www.anycraze.com/showcard_full.asp?id=7EBU149&pp=magic_search). This card seems perfect for a deck that can produce lots of mana and can abuse the graveyard.

I havent tested it, but i would like to know what everone thinks... If its not right for this deck, it still seems that it could be very broken in something else.


Edit: to prevent a double post

Has anyone tested Winds of Change (http://www.anycraze.com/showcard_full.asp?id=LERU172&pp=magic_search)?

It seems like the only thing that is holding the deck back is its susceptability to hate and lack of consistancy. I think Winds of Change may be able to help with the consistancy of the deck by drawing into the Tutor or belcher that is needed to go off...

Granted this is no Wheel of Fortune, its actually card disadvantage... but it does provide a good amount of digging power that could be usefull.

Just trying to help out,
Will Setzer

[Peter_Rotten]

This deck is now considered a DTB.

[IndyTerminator]

I don't about Winds of Change because it would seem very bad to refill the hand of a control deck with fresh cards. Plus to really get a lot of power out of Winds of Change. You'd have to have at least 4 or 5 cards to really get advantage out of it. So, really I see it as a way to mulligan first turn into a new hand which could be facilitated by using Serum Powder . . but I don't think anyone would use that.

So, I really don't know about Winds of Change. I really don't think it would be optimal in Belcher.

[B is for Big Job]

Winds of Change is basically a better serum visions. Like Indy said, Winds can either help you or hurt you when going against control or any other deck. Your opponent, if playing a blue or some other control deck, can get something good, or complete jank, as the same goes for you.

But on needing 4-5 cards for advantage, you could have a 3 card hand and it can be complete garbage and use Winds to get an almost game winning draw. Like the deck goes, you either win, or get completely shat on by it by getting bad draws, or death by the infamous Spoils.

[DavidHernandez]

Just a comment...

This friggin' deck has been showing up in San Diego (2-land Belcher). There are times it goes off on turn one, but usually it either kills the opponent -or- it's handler by turn 3. It's so fast that even with 4 Null Rods in my deck I lost to it. In fact, even with Null Rod in hand I lost to it.

It's been placing in the top 3 out here every time it's run. "Jerry" started using it, and even though he wasn't accustomed to the deck, he was rolling over his opponents.

Dave.

[bigguyinblack]

Can you post a decklist of the version that is doing so well?

[rhino408]

[color=#000000:post_uid2]Hmmm well here goes my first post :D . Well I can probably say this is the best combo deck evar! Well I am not sure how much I like Birds of Paradise in this deck, so here goes my list without Birds of Paradises.

4xLotus Petal
4xLion's Eye Diamond
4xChrome Mox
4xChromatic Sphere
4xGoblin Charbelcher

4xSpoils of the Vault
3xPlunge Into Darkness

4xDark Ritual
4xLand Grant
4xElvish Spirit Guide
4xTinder Wall
4xCabal Ritual

4xDuress
4xGoblin Welder

1xBayou
1xTaiga

I think that is 57 cards. I think there can be an alternative besides BoP. Plz help.

I think those spaces may go toward more protection meaning Cabal Therapy. More accel would mean Seething Song which is decent. I think we need the extra accel because our protection is mostly in teh sideboard.[/color:post_uid2]

[No_Life_No_Future]

Hey!

I found some cards that may help:

Thran Turbine
Card type: Artifact
Casting cost: 1
Oracle text: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may add up to 2 to your mana pool. You can't spend this mana to play spells.

(can be used to pay the belchers ability)


Aether Vial
Card type: Artifact
Casting cost: 1
Oracle text: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a charge counter on Æther Vial.
T: You may put a creature card with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Æther Vial from your hand into play.

Aether Vial could be used to toss out uncounterable welders/xantid swarm/BoP or anyother 1 cc creaters.


hopw this helps

[bigredmeanie]

Neither 1 of those cards is good for this deck.

Thran Turbine doesn't net you anything. Though it can allow you to activate your belcher During your next turn, in most cases you could probably do that anyway. Falling back on this card gives your opponent an entire turn to just kill the belcher.

Vial is only good in creature based decks, or ones that can gain some advantage by their inclusion. This deck, though all the creatures are 1cc is not creature based, and will watch the free uncounterable creatures get owned by removal anyway.

Plus neither 1 gets you something immediately, so you would have to cut a car that does give you something immediately in order to add these slow 'options.'

[currence]

My build for Belcher right now is pretty much the same as DeathwingZEROs, except instead of three Cabal Therapy I play with three Pentad Prisms.

I've been thinking of cutting the fourth Spoils of the Vault for a third Desperate Research, or maybe even another Enlightened Tutor.

How has everyone's build worked for them, so far, concerning the ratios between mana-tutor-protection?

[VElmdor]

This is my first post on this site. I have been testing my own version of this. I run one land to help reduce the odds of misbelching. This is the build I use.

-Lands
1 Bayou
-Creatures
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
-Spells
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
4 Land Grant
-Sideboard
4 Defense Grid
4 Naturalize
4 Ghastly Demise
3 Xantid Swarm

Ghastly Demise is purely for Meddling Mage. All you need is to get 2 cards to the grave. With this deck, that isn't a problem.
Naturalize is obviously for Null Rod, Chalice of the Void, etc. I use this and not Oxidize for stuff like Solitary Confinement. You need to be prepaired in either case.
Has anyone thought of Regrowth? It's not banned.
I use Defense Grid over Xantid Swarm because Xantid Swarm does not have good synergy with Eladamri's Vineyard.
Duress/Cabal Therapy reduce the odds of having your spells countered and you know what they may or may not have in their hands.
Plunge into Darkness and Spoils of the Vault are the best two tutors for this deck. They both get the cards you need THAT turn and remove other cards (such as an extra land if you are playing with two lands). I seldom lose to Spoils of the Vault or Plunge into Darkness but it does happen. It adds to the randomness of this deck.

Now I have read the previous posts about other additions and I have a few suggestions:
Goblin Welder-This is a great card to consider. The only bad part is that this is a creature and so many decks have creature removal. It makes Lion's Eye Diamond a better card in this deck. After you drop all of your other spells, sack the Lion's Eye Diamond and use Goblin Welder to get back Goblin Charbelcher
Birds of Paradise-This is the potential replacement for Eladamri's Vineyard. They each have one advantage over the other. One produces mana of any color while the other produces two green mana. They both take two turns to fully utilize. Eladamri's Vineyard provides mana to both players (most often results in mana burn) and Birds of Paradise is subject to creature removal.
Wall of Roots/Wall of Blossoms-These are great blockers which is good against aggro decks. Wall of Roots provides mana and Wall of Blossoms provides an extra card. Or in some cases they are fodder for Chrome Mox.
Tainted Pact-This card should not be used. This may get the card you need and it probably won't. For the same amount of mana, you can use Plunge into Darkness to get the card you want of another card you can use. I personally prefer Plunge into Darkness over Tainted Pact but I feel Tainted Pact would not be as dangerous but may be less consistant in getting what you want.
Reverent Silence-Sure they get the life gain but you remove ALL enchantments from your threat zone.

I think this deck should just stick to two colors.
Goblin Welder, Gamble, Seething Song, and Desperate Ritual are obvious choices to splash red in. Taiga and Crash may be added as well. Orcish Lumberjack is kind of nice with Taiga. Did anyone consider something like Cave-In for Meddling Mage and the like? Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, or even all around counter like Molten Influence might help.
I really don't think blue has good synergy with this deck either. Meditate, Sleight of Hand, Brainstorm, Serum Visions, Opt, Impulse, or even Force of Will could be added. This can always be made into a Control Belcher to reduce the odds of inconsistancy.
White, in my opinion, may be the best extra color to splash. Enlightened Tutor, Sword to Plowshares, Tithe, Orim's Chant, or Argivian Find are the cards to consider. Abolish may answer some enchantment/artifact threats you face.

When I play this deck, people ask me why I do not run Taiga. Why should you run Taiga if you are only playing two colors like I am? It does not provide the mana you need and you do not need the extra damage. When I activate Goblin Charbelcher, less than 10% of the time do I reveal a land that I did not get via Land Grant appears before I reach 20 damage. Of course, odds are they have taken mana burn due to Eladamri's Vineyard.

So far, none of the decks I have read about have nothing to remove Meddling Mage other than Swords to Plowshares. Cabal Therapy comes close, but I would not name that card FIRST when using it. Ghastly Demise is cheap, does not offer life gain, and only requires two cards to be in your graveyard. How easy is it to get two cards in the grave? Rhetorical question.

One last statement before I finish this post. Auriok Salvagers plus Lion's Eye Diamond is infinite mana. This can be extremely useful if you are using Welder and you have tapped out and you only have Lion's Eye Diamond in play with not enough mana to activate it. I know this card is a bit slow, but it is definately something to consider.

I hope my thoughts have helped in deciding what to draft into your deck. Have fun with this. By the way, I've been testing my version for quite some time now. I win about 85% of my games, lose 10% to my own cards, and I am actually beaten 5% of the time. I just built a Zero Land Belcher and it works great. Well, most of the time anyways. I had 50 Goldfish games and all of them I won within the first three turns without mulligan. I think it was 8 first turn kills, 17 second turn kills, and 25 third turn kills.

[strick09]

I think that is 57 cards. I think there can be an alternative besides BoP. Plz help

Pentad Prism. If you're playing Welders (especially 4 of them, like you do), then Pentad Prism = Awesome. PP's let you cycle off those chromatic spheres and effectively "save for later" the mana generated by them. Same goes for a turn 1 Tinder Wall -> Goblin Welder with R floating. eg: opening hand: ESG, Welder, Tinder Wall, Land Grant, Pentad Prism, other stuff.
Remove ESG for G, play Tinder Wall. Cast Land Grant for Bayou. Play Bayou, sac Wall for RR, play Welder, use R and B (from Bayou) to play Pentad Prism.

One thing I noticed tho -- without some more tutoring or card draw you will be more likely to burn out of fuel. There have been a number of decent suggestions -- I've personally been a fan of Gamble..but it's usefulness is debatable (and heavily dependent on your comfortability with risk).

[Zilla]

Moved by popular vote to Open. While the deck is perfectly viable and in fact very strong, it simply isn't seeing enough play to warrant its DTB status at the moment. Should it start placing consistently in T8's, it will return to the LMF. -Zilla

[dazed and confused]

Ok this is my first posting on here, but i have been playing belcher for a bit now and have been doing great except for the couple times that i spoiled myself but still had a BLAST!!! My deck list is:

land
1x bayou

creatures
4x E.S.G
3x Welder
4x Tinder wall

search
4x spoils
4x tainted pact
4x gamble
3x plunge into darkness

mana source
4x lotus petal
4x chrome mox
4x land grant
4x lion's eye diamond
4x dark ritual

helpers
4x chromatic sphere ( mana fixer and draw )
3x duress
2x living wish

kill
4x belcher

S.B

1x welder
3x xantid swarm
1x sundering titan
1x city of traitors
1x taiga
1x Orangabang ( sex monkey )
1x varidian shaman
1x bone shredder
1x gaea's blessing / platinum angel
4x oxidize

With the addition of the extra search i have experienced alot more consistancy on 2nd or 3rd turn if you havent gone off first turn or fizzled. Try it and let me know what ya think

[Lego]

Sorry about adding posts to all the dead threads, but does anyone still play this deck? I've been trying to find a viable combo deck in T1.5, and since I'm still working on my blue-based Solitaire deck, I'm wondering how viable Belcher is.

Does anyone have a current, up-to-date list? I'd like to throw something together and test it out. Seems to roll over to control, but we're seeing a lot of Burn/Gro/Goblins these days. Is it worth playing a deck that automatically loses to Landstill if it can consistantly beat the other combo (Solidarity) and all the aggro on speed?

[dsg123456789]

Stephen Mennendian's list (which I cannot access, due to lack of SCG premium) is a very robust list. It does not autolose to anything, even though control decks can prove to be difficult matchups. Search around this site and Starcity's forums to find a copy of his list. Last I saw (3 hours ago, playing against him) he still had Brainstorm in the deck, 2 lands, and maindeck Xantid Swarms.

[Zilla]

Menendian's list:

Artifacts
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chrome Mox
2 Darkwater Egg
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall

Instants
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Plunge Into Darkness
4 Spoils Of The Vault

Sorceries
4 Duress
4 Land Grant
2 Night's Whisper
1 Sleight Of Hand

Lands
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

It may have changed a bit in the last month or so, but this was the original SCG list.

I wish I knew what his sideboard looked like, because if your opponent goes first turn: Land, Pithing Needle, Belcher scoops in response. Presumably Menendian's got Oxidize in the board for this reason, but it still seems like it could be a real issue.

[dsg123456789]

Since, as I said, I just played him today (about 5 or 6 games) and I did not see any tinder walls, I think that it is a reasonable assumption to say those were cut, or at least cut down to less, in order to make room for xantids. BTW, I was playing a deck that ran 4x duress, so I did repeatedly see his hand, which lends strength to my assertion. Plus, Xantids would import matchups against decks with counters.

[Zilla]

Since, as I said, I just played him today (about 5 or 6 games) and I did not see any tinder walls, I think that it is a reasonable assumption to say those were cut, or at least cut down to less
You never know. I played 15 games on MWS with the same deck yesterday and didn't see 2 seperate 4-of's in any of those games. But I digress. It's a safe bet the walls were cut for Swarms. Smennen was probably getting tired of scooping to control.

[Lego]

Thanks guys. With or without Xantid swarm, that looks like a good list. I've been tinkering with a one land Suicide list. It's balls-to-the-wall and often goes off on turn 2, but auto-scoops to a single counterspell of any sort. In fact, a single Stifle would probably kill it. This list seems a lot better.

[troopatroop]

With grim tutor being unbanned in time for the GP, should it go into this deck? Could this deck benefit from a 3cc HARD tutor? Is the mana cost too much?

[Smmenen]

No. Grim Tutor costs waaay too much. I honestly don't think that Grim Tutor will be very good in this format... but we shall see.

[FluffyPinkBunnies]

Well grim could take the place of spoils just so it takes out the killing yourself factor..but i do agree that the CC is way too much and spoils is probably more worth the risk

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

I also agree that a more expensive tutor is not the way to go. It's been a while since spoils has acually killed me, and I rarely find that I have 2 mana I don't want.

What's everyone thinking about welder these days? It's a house against control, as it can either bait a counter or makes them completely useless. 3 reside in my SB right now, and they may well be the MVP.

[hacksign]

Ok, I read the past pages and have 2 question: Why play 2 lands? The second land always stops my belcher and it pretty much pisses me off. However I would like a red source for my seething song and Desperate ritual and was thinking of adding taiga. The second question is: What should belcher fundamental turn be?
Here is my list:
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [R] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
3 [9E] Seething Song
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [MR] Spoils of the Vault
4 [FD] Plunge into Darkness
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chromatic Sphere
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [7E] Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [UL] Goblin Welder
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 4 [DS] Oxidize
SB: 4 [OD] Ghastly Demise

Pretty Much the card choices are obvious, I dont like alot the chromatic cause they slow you down if you dont play them on first turn and they cant be piched to Mox. However, They are great Mana Fixer to get that red mana out I was thinking of -2 Chromatic, +1 Taiga +1 Seething Song. What do you think? Thanks for your help. One land is pretty fast, it either goes off turn 1 or turn 2 or doesnt go off at all, is the secon land going to help me?
Anyone got new cards from Ravnica to add to the deck or some major changes? What do you think of Dark Confidant? And, MOzenrath said that the deck changes drasticly with 2 lands instead of 1. And, should we play taiga or tropical island as an extra land? Can I have a decklist? And what are the main difference? Do they play differently?

[AnwarA101]

It would be interesting to know why you made the choices you made for the deck. Though you still have to get over the fact that the deck is very inconsistent. I'm currently considering the white splash over the red splash perhaps for both Tithe and Englightened Tutor, but I'm not sure how good these ideas are without testing them.

[Dr.ugs]

From the Goblin-Vials Thread we have learned that card advantage is better than speed , so I want to advertise Sev-Belch to you.

Instead of disruption it has counterspells , instead of cantrips it has its own rock-solid draw engine and instead of shaky mana sources and 2 lands it has a good Mana base with accelaration as well.

Sev-Belch needs to resolve a 2 CC spell more than 2 land Belcher but its that does not make any of your machtups worse.It is slower than 2 land belcher but it can stall until late game much more easily while it is still able to race most aggro decks.Once your opponent has some kind of disruption(hand,artifact,mana sources,needle,mage..) 2 land belcher has a small chance to wining while Sev-Belch can reload until it has recovered or until it has found an answer(Echoing Truth,Chrome Mox..).

It is a fact that Sev-Belch does a lot better against Combo and Control while I am not even sure if it is weaker against beatdown.2 land belcher has the problem that it needs to mulligan more often than other deck I know in the format.Also the Welder and Walls included in most lists are also hit by creature removal which is used by 90%(I like to cheat on statistics).

All to gether makes me think that 2 land belcher is obsolete and I don´t see a real reason to run it over Sev-Belch.

For the ones interrested amoung you here is the link of the controlish Belcher version:

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3227

[Rood]

How many Plunge Into Darknesses have you guys found to be necessary for the search engine? Also, what is the best strategy vs. a deck like stax.

[Dr.ugs]

How many Plunge Into Darknesses have you guys found to be necessary for the search engine? Also, what is the best strategy vs. a deck like stax.



Well Plunge into Darkness is crap but you don&#180;t have that many tutors in the format.I would run a lot of Cantrips instead just like menemendian did.And the best way to beat stax is to run Sev-Belch instead so you can counter their lock pieces and since you can Echoing Truth important permanents(Smokestack,Tangle,Exalted).When you want so stay with the 2 land version then you should use your Welders and you need Living Wish to get some lands or sex monkeys.

Still it is a very bad Machtup for both Belcher Versions

[Rood]

Well Plunge into Darkness is crap but you don´t have that many tutors in the format.I would run a lot of Cantrips instead just like menemendian did.And the best way to beat stax is to run Sev-Belch instead so you can counter their lock pieces and since you can Echoing Truth important permanents(Smokestack,Tangle,Exalted).When you want so stay with the 2 land version then you should use your Welders and you need Living Wish to get some lands or sex monkeys.

Still it is a very bad Machtup for both Belcher Versions
Living Wish seems a viable answer to combat Stax. You think Hammer Mage could do some damage? Also, Welder is nice I think I'll try to put 2-3 in my build over Xantids switched to side. Thanks.

[MattH]

You might look at a Transmute card instead of Plunge. No idea if that's better than cantrips.

[Rood]

You might look at a Transmute card instead of Plunge. No idea if that's better than cantrips.
What black transmute card would accually be worth paying 3 mana to use?
It just seems to me like a transmute card for 3 mana isn't simple viable enough to use to fetch for something.

[SillyMetalGAT]

Sorry about this, but Im WAYY too lazy to read through all 10 pages, so I may be bringing up an old discussion.... has anyone tried Eladmri's Vineyard (spell check FTW)? Free mana is what this deck is all about, and giving your opponent GG isnt always bad..... especially to a deck like wombat or goblins. I actually played goblins against a GW control deck sporting 4x Vineyard and lost because I couldnt effectively use GGGG every turn....... very annoying.

[Rood]

Sometimes i find 4x Land grants to be too few search engines for the 2 lands. What do you guys think of Wirewood Guardian the forest fetcher for 2 mana?

[AnwarA101]

Sometimes i find 4x Land grants to be too few search engines for the 2 lands. What do you guys think of Wirewood Guardian the forest fetcher for 2 mana?

I actually played Belcher this weekend. I find 4 Land Grants too low as well. I was running Tithe yesterday and I really liked it. My chance of getting a land was increased greatly with 3 Tithes.

[Rambo]

Has anyone thought of a couple REB's maindeck? I saw a deck that did well called elemental belcher that ran them MB.

[Rood]

I actually played Belcher this weekend. I find 4 Land Grants too low as well. I was running Tithe yesterday and I really liked it. My chance of getting a land was increased greatly with 3 Tithes.
Tithe?? How do you like the white splash with Enlightened tutor? Seems like an interesting build but i have no tried it yet. How consistent do you find it to be.

[AnwarA101]

Tithe?? How do you like the white splash with Enlightened tutor? Seems like an interesting build but i have no tried it yet. How consistent do you find it to be.


Tithe functions as another way to find one of the 2 lands in the deck. I was also running Enlightened Tutor. E. Tutor was very good to me - helping to get me either Belcher or Lion's Eye Diamond. I was able to beat both Zoo and Goblins, but my two losses were to Gro. I'm not really sure this deck can be good against Gro, but I was happy to be able to race aggro.

[Rood]

Tithe functions as another way to find one of the 2 lands in the deck. I was also running Enlightened Tutor. E. Tutor was very good to me - helping to get me either Belcher or Lion's Eye Diamond. I was able to beat both Zoo and Goblins, but my two losses were to Gro. I'm not really sure this deck can be good against Gro, but I was happy to be able to race aggro.
I unfortunately had the same tournament results. Beat Zoo/Goblins and to Threshold. What would be a good option here to best try to fight through a wall of Dazes/Forcies. So far my only answer to Thresh is a turn one Xantid Swarm. But of course it can be easily Swords. Thoughts?

[Bane of the Living]

Ive seen the more conservative builds do better against thresh. No Desparate Ritual or Seething Song.

3 Swarm
3 Welder

Maindecking those is painful but it helps. Welder gets around meddling mage cause you cheat belcher into play. Its also good against needle in the off chance a deck has another artifact in the yard.

Another choice is to go with maindeck Oxidise. It doesnt do much against thresh unless they maindeck needle. But it does stop maindeck needle, and blows up Vial and Mox to buy you more time against gobs and random aggro.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Anwar's list actually has 2 maindeck Seals of Cleansing, fetchable with E Tutor, along with some number of Duresses. He also has Argivian Finds in the deck, which can recur Seal as well as Belcher and the mana artifacts.

Of course, he still can't beat Gro because Belcher has to invest multiple cards in every game-affecting play it makes (and it rarely has the resources for more than 2 such plays per game).

Swarm and Welder require very small investments, and they also impact the game a great deal (since you should win if they aren't answered), but they also give the Gro player good targets for his or her removal. I think additional discard or other non-creature disruption (Defense Grid, City of Solitude, REB, Oxidize, etc.) is superior.

[Rood]

Anwar's list actually has 2 maindeck Seals of Cleansing, fetchable with E Tutor, along with some number of Duresses. He also has Argivian Finds in the deck, which can recur Seal as well as Belcher and the mana artifacts.

Of course, he still can't beat Gro because Belcher has to invest multiple cards in every game-affecting play it makes (and it rarely has the resources for more than 2 such plays per game).

Swarm and Welder require very small investments, and they also impact the game a great deal (since you should win if they aren't answered), but they also give the Gro player good targets for his or her removal. I think additional discard or other non-creature disruption (Defense Grid, City of Solitude, REB, Oxidize, etc.) is superior.
I kind of want to test the white splash only thing I can see with E.Tutor and Tithe and stuff is if you don't draw a Grant or Petal to open your almost certainly screwed, no? Even a Chrome mox is shady because you need to remove a white source and it is a splice so I'm not too sure. How easy do you find the mana splicer to be? Also, I run 4x Xantids MD now cause Belcher rolls over to Thresh/Control without him. Also, what do you guys think of Wirewood Guardian as another Land Grant component?

[magicxsoldier]

This is my basic two-land belcher..

Lands:2

X1 Taiga
X1 Bayou

Creatures:12

X4 Elvish Spirit Guide-Cheap mana source
X4 [Tinder Wall-Cheap mana source
X2 Birds of Paradise-Cheap mana source
X2 Goblin Welder-Artifact Fix, very helpful

Artifact:20

X4 Chrome Mox-Cheap mana source
X4 Lion's Eye Diamond-Cheap mana source
X4 Chromatic Sphere-Cheap mana source
X4 Goblin Charbelcher-WIN!!!!11!!!
X4 Lotus Petal-Cheap mana source

Instant:12

X2 Cabal Ritual[-Cheap mana source
X2 Plunge Into Darkness-Search
X4 Dark Ritual-Cheap mana source
X4 Spoils of the Vault-Search

Sorcery:14

X4 Gamble-Search
X4 Land Grant-Cheap land source
X4 Cabal Therapy-Cheap mana source
X2 Duress-Discard


Sideboard:15

X4 Eladmari's Vineyard-Cheap mana source
X4 Oxidize- Artifact Hate
X4 Xantid Swarm- Anti Control
X4 Night's Whisper- draw

THis list(while goldfishing) almost always wins by turn 3.


I have some other lists but this is my primary list...

MATCHUPS

Goblins- If I fizzle, i get killed, but a pretty easy matchup

Thresh- Side in Xantid swarm and pray I get, pretty hard matchup, but can win.

Burn-Pretty much no contest

Stax- If they pull of combo early, i get screwed, but i side in artifact hate.

High Tide-Xantid swarm, i have only played one game against that though.

More matchups coming soon!


So, what do you think?

[Rood]

This is my basic two-land belcher..

Lands:2

X1 Taiga
X1 Bayou

Creatures:12

X4 Elvish Spirit Guide-Cheap mana source
X4 [Tinder Wall-Cheap mana source
X2 Birds of Paradise-Cheap mana source
X2 Goblin Welder-Artifact Fix, very helpful

Artifact:20

X4 Chrome Mox-Cheap mana source
X4 Lion's Eye Diamond-Cheap mana source
X4 Chromatic Sphere-Cheap mana source
X4 Goblin Charbelcher-WIN!!!!11!!!
X4 Lotus Petal-Cheap mana source

Instant:12

X2 Cabal Ritual[-Cheap mana source
X2 Plunge Into Darkness-Search
X4 Dark Ritual-Cheap mana source
X4 Spoils of the Vault-Search

Sorcery:14

X4 Gamble-Search
X4 Land Grant-Cheap land source
X4 Cabal Therapy-Cheap mana source
X2 Duress-Discard


Sideboard:15

X4 Eladmari's Vineyard-Cheap mana source
X4 Oxidize- Artifact Hate
X4 Xantid Swarm- Anti Control
X4 Night's Whisper- draw

THis list(while goldfishing) almost always wins by turn 3.


I have some other lists but this is my primary list...

MATCHUPS

Goblins- If I fizzle, i get killed, but a pretty easy matchup

Thresh- Side in Xantid swarm and pray I get, pretty hard matchup, but can win.

Burn-Pretty much no contest

Stax- If they pull of combo early, i get screwed, but i side in artifact hate.

High Tide-Xantid swarm, i have only played one game against that though.

More matchups coming soon!


So, what do you think?

Looks like an extremely solid build. I have to add i dropped the Welders off my list. So damn slow. Belcher wants to win turn 1. A welder is just horrible to have in starting hand and it's tech really isn't all that great unless you're playing control. I added +4 Wirewood Guardian-The 4 added fetchlands for 2 mana are extremely helpful. I also run a ton more mana excel like +2 more Cabal Rituals and 4x Desperate Rituals, synergy with Tinder Wall. As for my sideboard, I run Shattering Spree's because it can smash through a chalice for 1 which is extremely annoying. Chalice for 1 does hurt Oxidize, lol. Our builds are similiar I do like it very much. Maybe -4 Whispers +2 Shattering Spree's and +2 Vendetta's for Meddling Mages. Also consider dropping Welder, as I find him to be very slow for a turn one-two kill deck.

[AnwarA101]

I didn't play Goblin Welder in tournament play, but when I fishing the deck I often had him without a artifact in play that I could switch out to bring back a Belcher or a LED. I found that red was offering me very little in the way of a splash. I switched to white to get both Enlightened Tutor and Tithe as well as tutor targets like Seal of Cleansing.

Has anyone else found Chromatic Sphere to be awful in this deck? You hardly ever want to invest the first mana in a card that doesn't give you anything back unless you invest another mana just to filter a color and draw a card.

[Rood]

tutor targets like Seal of Cleansing.

Has anyone else found Chromatic Sphere to be awful in this deck? You hardly ever want to invest the first mana in a card that doesn't give you anything back unless you invest another mana just to filter a color and draw a card.

I dropped Spheres off my decklist a long time ago. They are awful you're right. I don't like how slow they are and if you don't draw a Grant or Land in opening hand you need to play this off a Petal, ESG, or mox, and most of the time you just don't want to cast it over a Tinder Wall turn 1.

[magicxsoldier]

OK, i took the sideboard suggestion, i might throw welder in the sideboard,Yeah..sphere might get the boot.. and here is a decklist with white in it..

// Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [R] Savannah

// Creatures
4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
4 [7E] Blood Pet
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [IA] Tinder Wall

// Spells
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [7E] Duress
2 [IN] Chromatic Sphere
4 [MR] Spoils of the Vault
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [4E] Dark Ritual
4 [MR] Chrome Mox

EDIT:

// Sideboard
4 [TE] Eladamri's Vineyard
3 [GP] Shattering Spree
4 [DS] Oxidize
4 [MM] Vendetta


Matchups are pretty much the same as my other deck, its a little faster

[Rood]

That build looks sweet will definetally try it out to see how it fairs. Perhaps -2 C. Sphers for +2 Tithe would serve you nicely.

[Bane of the Living]

When are you sb'ing Vineyards? And why 7 ways to destroy artifacts in the board? No seal main? It seems to be the advantage to the white splash.

Wheres stp for meddling mage?

[Kizzy]

Like others, I haven't read through the 10 pages before posting, but isn't this deck more worried about discard than counters? I mean with access to Unmask and Duress, Threshold shouldn't be a hard matchup. Discard is what kills you, and with Deadguy Ale gaining popularity, that poses a huge problem for this deck. I've gone as far as sideboarding Library of Leng because I have no other answers to discard. I just roll over and die to it. And discard still owns me even with the Library in play.

I would not maindeck Xantid Swarm. I would maindeck more discard. Unmask and Duress is good against a lot of decks, whereas Swarm is good against basically 1 deck (that deck being Threshold since Landstill isn't really played anymore). I've also cut the second land, hence cutting red entirely. What does red give you? REB? You're not a control deck. Welder? Unmask and Duress solve the problem better than Welder, and they don't slow you down. Gamble? A subpar tutor and not needed when black has so many good tutors.

Also, with cutting the land down to 1, you go off with Belcher a lot more reliably. A single Land Grant means you're belching for the win.
Here is my list:

4 cabal therapy
4 duress
4 unmask
4 land grant
4 spoils of the vault
4 plunge into darkness
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 chrome mox
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 goblin charbelcher
3 birds of paradise
4 tinder wall
4 elvish spirit guide
1 bayou

Sideboard:
3 Winter Orb
3 Oxidize
3 Contagion
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Library of Leng

I have no Defense Grid in the sb because it's not needed with 4 Unmask and 4 Duress main. There's also no Needle because against all the decks that you would want to side in Needle against, you should be beating those decks by the time they get online anyways. Belcher is way faster than everything else. Winter Orb comes in against Dirt, Rifter, and the like. Contagion for Meddling Mage, and makes Goblins matchup that much more favorable. I really hate the Library of Leng but I don't know what else to do against discard. Suggestions???

The only problem with the deck is Spoils of the Vault. I am more worried about my own Spoils than I am of my opponent. I've lost more games because I've Spoiled myself to death than I have to my opponent, and I'm totally not joking. And yes I power shuffle like a fiend, but it doesn't matter. I tried Tainted Pact in the Spoils slot but didn't like it.

I really like the idea of splashing white. E Tutor seems really really good. Maybe I'll fiddle around with that.

-Kiz

[Obfuscate Freely]

Counterspells are much better against Belcher than discard spells. Belcher can win before discard comes online, or it can topdeck into the win later. Counterspells, on the other hand, punish Belcher for playing so much mana acceleration, and for investing several cards into a single spell (Belcher itself).

Discard of your own certainly helps against counterspells, though. Does your list still goldfish reliably with 12 discard spells in it? Don't you ever have problems playing Unmask?

As for answering opposing discard, Enlightened Tutor will help some (Tutoring in response hides the Belcher on top of your deck, but they'll probably be able to stunt your mana, nonetheless). If you want to board for it, I guess either Compost or Spiritual Focus could work.

[Kizzy]

Yes, my deck still goldfishes just as reliably as any other version I've seen. It's still turn 2-3 very consistent. IMO it's much more reliable and faster than the other versions that run more controlesk cards like Welder or Xantid Swarm. As for Unmask, it's like the best card ever. lol
Yes, there are times when I don't want to pitch anything to play it, but those times really are rare. I'm never unhappy to draw an Unmask. Unmask targets everything (cept land), so it's good against every deck. Even if I do have to pitch something to it that I'd rather keep, it's a mana acceleration card (pretty much your only black cards are mana acc) or an extra Spoils or an extra Plunge, and it's not like the deck is light on mana acc. You're bound to topdeck more, so it doesn't hurt you that bad. Unmask also makes use of the extra Spoils or Plunge that might be in your hand that you don't want to cast. The effect that Unmask is giving you is well worth it regardless. And the Unmask makes your deck more black heavy (instead of something like Xantids) so you have more black Chrome Mox targets, which is very handy. I always hate it when I'm forced to imprint Chrome Mox with a green card. :frown:

More black Chrome Mox imprint targets might seem like a very small and stupid reason of why Unmask is good in the deck, but it is one more reason, and with a combo deck that is so tight and relies so heavily on speed, it's a very big deal. Having that black card to pitch to Mox and not having it could mean the difference between winning that game and losing that game.

OMG Compost. I can't believe I forgot about that card. lol. I'm definitely going to test that, but I'm already sure it would be better than Library of Leng. Thanks!

[Rood]

Mono-Black discard/Deadguy variants are not at all the biggest threat to belcher. You go first, play a Grant, fetch and land, tutor for Belcher play it. They now are discarding your hand now. Cool. You topdeck into more excel stuff so it really doesn't hurt you compared to just Force of Will or Daze.

[SillyMetalGAT]

Counter and discard both suck for Belcher, its the fact that counters are instants so you HAVE to prepare for them. Discard isn't an issue if you have the nuts in your hand and your playing.

[Bane of the Living]

Let me ask an interesting question, I hope people wont flip out over it. If you know what your opponents playing, do you ever question if you want to DRAW instead of PLAY? I've had this come up a number of times, belcher really loves that card it could get. Id like to do this against any non control deck, even with Pithing Needle around as long as your prepared for it you might be ok. Thoughts?

[Mantis]

With Dissension being the next set to be released, do you think this deck will reach top tier once Infernal Tutor gets legal? I hear LED + Infernal Tutor is tech.

[Lego]

I think that something will reach Tier 1 once Dissension is playable, and it could quite possibly be this. I've been consistently goldfishing turn 2 hands, and they usually don't role to a Force, which is nice. The way the meta is looking right now, with the release of Dissension, I couldn't see a better time for there to be a resurgance in the Belcher area :)

[Lukas Preuss]

With the new tutor, you could probably up the black card count in Belcher enough to make Unmask playable (you would have cards like the 8 rituals, 4 tutors, maybe spoils, maybe duress or therapy). This would be great to improve its matchups against anything that packs a lot of disruption.

[Caleb]

The new tutor would make Cabal Ritual quite good too, as you might actually reach threshold quickly.

This is the build I've been running lately:

// Lands
1 [A] Bayou
1 [B] Tropical Island

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [IA] Tinder Wall

// Spells
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [5E] Dark Ritual
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chromatic Sphere
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [JU] Living Wish
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TE] Eladamri's Vineyard
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [7E] Duress
4 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
2 [FD] Night's Whisper

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [UL] Goblin Welder
SB: 3 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [6E] Uktabi Orangutan
SB: 1 [8E] City of Brass
SB: 1 [FD] Auriok Salvagers
SB: 1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
SB: 1 [EX] City of Traitors
SB: 1 [TO] Mesmeric Fiend
SB: 1 [FD] Eternal Witness
SB: 1 [NE] Woodripper
SB: 1 [GP] Skeletal Vampire

The Salvagers in the sb provide an alternate win condition (Living wish, IR Ritual, Sack LED, then win if you have a chromatic sphere in hand/play/grave) which makes this deck more than belcher.

Lim-Dul's Vault can set up either the belcher win, or the Combo win. If you drop one you can usually figure out how to win the next turn, which makes this more than a simple tutor. Sphere/Brainstorm/Nights whispers can draw into what you need after playing the vault too, giving this deck even more of a comboish feel.

Vineyard can be a green dark ritual, or more if the game goes to turn 3. This is a mana-hungry version of Belcher that aims at a more consistant turn 2/3 instead of aiming for the nut 1/2, so vineyard is better than it would be normally.

Hmm, what else would look odd here. Oh, right, the Skeletal Vampire in the sb is to just grab to beat down with when both you and your opp have nothing (happens sometimes, it has straight-up won me games vs. Thresh). Usually it's just something to grab when you're comboing off w/living wish if your belchars have been extracted, or something stupid like that. Another out, basically.

Sometimes wish grabs an out, sometimes it grabs the sackland to ensure the kill, sometimes it grabs the combo. It's always good, though.

This version of belcher is a lot more complicated than normal versions. It's also more consistant, and has more outs. It's slower. I like it a lot, but I can definately understand why it wouldn't be for everyone.

The UGw thresh matchup still sucks. Needle is ok. FoW is ok. Meddling mage is ok. All 3 together? Hell. Anyone know any tech for this? I've tried transformative sbing, sbing crypts to slow them down, boarding in a red splash for REB's, and boarding in more discard. None of it seems to really work, so I was hoping there'd be something I could grab from a wishboard that'd help more. I've won games from swinging w/ vamp and friends, while vineyard deals them damage, but that doesn't happen consistantly.

Note: A bad Thresh player will name belchar w/ both mage and needle, which can give me the window to go off with the combo. Still, hoping your opponent is bad is a very bad strategy in this game.

If you have questions/suggestions/comments, they are most welcome. Please don't flame though. I've been tweaking this list ever since the new 1.5 list was announced months ago, and it's had a lot of playtest time, tournament results (T8's, T4's, & finals), and tweaking. I guess I'm saying I'd like my effort respected, even if you dislike it personally.

[-BK-]

I think that vineyard isn't good because if this version of the belcherdeck isn't as fast as the other one you might get problems with goblindecks rushing you. With the sccleration of the vineyard the aggrodecks are more likely to pull out a turn 3 win what might be a problem for you.

[Caleb]

What're they going to do with that extra two mana, cast matron? Gobblins still needs double red for warcheif, and at least single reds for each other gob. Then you've still got tinder wall to block lackey. Besides, you've got a better chance of winning on turn two then they have of winning on turn three. You're right though, it does happen from time to time, just not often enough for me to worry about.

[Eldariel]

What're they going to do with that extra two mana, cast matron? Gobblins still needs double red for warcheif, and at least single reds for each other gob. Then you've still got tinder wall to block lackey. Besides, you've got a better chance of winning on turn two then they have of winning on turn three. You're right though, it does happen from time to time, just not often enough for me to worry about.

You also mentioned that occasionally you win against Threshold through manaburn, I think that alone vindicates its inclusion.

[SillyMetalGAT]

What're they going to do with that extra two mana, cast matron? Gobblins still needs double red for warcheif, and at least single reds for each other gob. Then you've still got tinder wall to block lackey. Besides, you've got a better chance of winning on turn two then they have of winning on turn three. You're right though, it does happen from time to time, just not often enough for me to worry about.

They may not drop Matron, but you've opened up a 2nd-turn Ringleader or double driver........ hell they even have 2nd turn warchief if they go mountain mountain. Vineyard is VERY VERY VERY bad against goblins.

EDIT: Hows this for a little doozy? I drop Vineyard after my opponent drops Vial. They go turn 2 vial in lacky, play warchief. Swing drop SGC. Very scary because I just gave them the win next turn pretty much as they dropped Matron, fetch Pyromancer, play pyromancer and vial out a Piledriver.... EXCELLENT!

[Bane of the Living]

I think maindeck Vineyard is a great thing. Goblins gains barely anything from it since they still want a turn one lackey not matron. Vineyard has also damaged my opponents for 4-5 damage a few times to make non lethal belchers lethal. Thresh has almost nothing to do with the green mana unless they have bear, Its only bad against rifter really. But you crush them anyways.

[SillyMetalGAT]

So your telling me if your holding a Ringleader and a lackey in opening hand, you drop lackey and say go and your opponent drops a Vineyard, your NOT going to play the Ringleader next turn?

[Eldariel]

So your telling me if your holding a Ringleader and a lackey in opening hand, you drop lackey and say go and your opponent drops a Vineyard, your NOT going to play the Ringleader next turn?

You've got the Lackey, you could get it into play anyways. Besides, Ringleader isn't racing any Belchers. With luck, they'll get a turn 3 kill, but they aren't killing turn 2 anyways, while we're going off turn 3 latest. Besides, the Vineyard mana pretty much guarantees being able to go off the next turn, so outside turn 2 kill (which Goblins simply are not capable off, Vineyard or not) it should be beef with that. Losing a tiny percentage of games to Goblins for more consistent goldfish and remote chances at winning against Threshold seem WELL worth it. No deck is actually going to use Vineyard mana to STOP you from going off so it's pretty trivial in that respect .

[Caleb]

Hah, incredibly improbable scenerio, but here.

Turn one

vial, vial, goblin lackey

turn two

drop cheif, vial in a lackey and swing (16)

lackey's drop Ringleader and siege gang (full 9 cards! lol!)

Leader hits Skirk Prospector, Siege Gang, Warcheif, Ringleader

Vial in prospector, Sack 2 Lackey's for Warcheif, sack 3 tokens for siege gang #2, sack 2 new tokens for ringleader #2

Ringleader #2 hits Siege Gang, Sharpshooter, Mogg Fanatic, Mogg fanatic

Sack last goblin token for sharpshooter, sack two ringleaders and a siege gang for siege gang #3, pinging w/ shooter (13)

sack two tokens for two fanatics (11) sack last token and a siege gang for mana, then fling a warcheif at their dome (6) sack a fanatic and prospector for mana, then chuck the last siege gang at their dome (1) then sack the fanatic ftw.

There are obviously variations on what the second Ringleader could hit for the turn two off of Vineyard to work, and it's obviously a one in a million, but it was still fun to work out.

The worst Vineyard mana is when they play an answer to the Vineyard with it. I've had Solidarity players use the mana for cunning wish-chain of vapors on Vineyard (they were able to combo out the next turn). I've had other decks use it to play a boarded in Naturalize. Once I had a WW player drop a Null Rod (though that didn't stop me from winning the game...)


EDIT: A few changes to my list. -2 Night's Whispers, +2 Meditate. Whispers werent doing too much for me, and I can see how Meditate could be crazy good, especially with Lim Duls Vault, Vineyards, and LED in the deck.

-2 welder, -2 swarm from my sb, +4 Defense Grid. I'm going to test this a bit, if I don't like it I'll switch back.

[GreenOne]

This is what happened to me, not really important, but funny.

turn 1
Him: tropical island, go.
Me: (damn, he's playing Threshold..) bayou, lotus petal, Vineyard.

Turn 2
Him: polluted delta, sac for underground sea. Play Aluren, win.
Me: (damn, he's not playing Threshold..)

[Kizzy]

To those of you who run Eladamri's Vineyard, or have ran it:
Is it really that good? I've considered running it a few times, and I've also considered sideboarding it, but in the end I always decline to do so. Legacy as a format can be very dependant upon tempo. Yes, Vineyard gives you a huge tempo swing, but your opponent benefits from it first, and I'm way too scared of what the opponent will be able to do with the mana and tempo I'm giving him. It's the same as when you cast Howling Mine, then your opponent draws an extra card and destroys it on his own turn in Standard. Also, aren't there times when the mana you get from the Vineyard does nothing for you, and you're forced to take burn? I know in theory you should be winning with the mana, but it's green, and the game doesn't always play out the way it should. What if you play Vineyard and then they counter your Belcher, or they hit you with some discard, and you yourself start taking burn every turn? That sounds horrible when there's so much mana acceleration out there that doesn't have a negative side effect, like the rest of the acceleration that's ALREADY in your deck.

Is Vineyard really any good? Is it even needed in a deck chocked full of mana acceleration already? Wouldn't the slots be better used by Unmask? The deck has no lack of mana acceleration, but it does lack in its ability to win through disruption. Unmask definitely helps with that...

[Dr.ugs]

I think maindeck Vineyard is a great thing. Goblins gains barely anything from it since they still want a turn one lackey not matron. Vineyard has also damaged my opponents for 4-5 damage a few times to make non lethal belchers lethal. Thresh has almost nothing to do with the green mana unless they have bear, Its only bad against rifter really. But you crush them anyways.

Have you ever tested the Machtup betweedn Belcher and ***** or Goblins?When yes then either you or your opponent(or both ) are very bad players.I guess its the first one..

***** gains great advantage of Vineyard because it can drop almost all its threads very fast.Its not only Werebear,Mongoose and the usal "fatty" like Fledling Draon,Mystic Enforcer or Sea Drake also most Gro decks run some cantrips which also require Colorless Mana.After boarding they bring in hate like Needle which they can cast for free.

Also please stop talking about turn 1 Lackey.Currently turn 1 lackey seems to be the most discussed Situation in MTG.Turn 1 Lackey is quite a rare case and even then you should outrace them.When they don´t have turn 1 lackey(which is most of the time) they will gain tremendous advantage from Vineyard.

In conclusion I say NO to vineyard...

More people should work on the white Version with Tithe,Seal,Tutor,Argivian Find,Abeyance and Orims Chant.

Tithe provides that your Tog gets lethal(a lot more than Vineyards manaburn)
Tutor gives this Deck one of the best tutors.
Seal of Cleansinig is awesome in our metagame as a fetchable maindeck 1 of.Because it is good against Rifter,Needle and many other problematic cards.
Argivian find gets back your belcher,LED and you can also cycle it with Cards like Chromatic Sphere in your Deck when you don´t need it.
Orims Chant protects your combo for just W.
Abeyance protects your combo,Cantrips and slows down your opponent.

Making a mana base for this Deck might be difficult but all these Cards seem to fit extremly well to Belcher not like Vineyard..

[SillyMetalGAT]

Have you ever tested the Machtup betweedn Belcher and ***** or Goblins?When yes then either you or your opponent(or both ) are very bad players.I guess its the first one..

Also please stop talking about turn 1 Lackey.Currently turn 1 lackey seems to be the most discussed Situation in MTG.Turn 1 Lackey is quite a rare case and even then you should outrace them.When they don´t have turn 1 lackey(which is most of the time) they will gain tremendous advantage from Vineyard.

You sir, are a COMPLETE idiot. Turn 1 Lacky is so feared because its QUITE COMMON!!! Ask anyone, they will all tell you that lacky comes down almost half the games that Goblins plays. Maybe since you live in the middle of nowhere you dont play against very good Goblin players (or maybe your not a very good player yourself) but people do this thing called AGGRESSIVE MULLIGANS! They mull down to a vial or lacky most of the time, and since they play 4, its not an issue too much.

[Rood]

You sir, are a COMPLETE idiot. Turn 1 Lacky is so feared because its QUITE COMMON!!! Ask anyone, they will all tell you that lacky comes down almost half the games that Goblins plays. Maybe since you live in the middle of nowhere you dont play against very good Goblin players (or maybe your not a very good player yourself) but people do this thing called AGGRESSIVE MULLIGANS! They mull down to a vial or lacky most of the time, and since they play 4, its not an issue too much.
I agree Lackey is so common it's not even funny but Vineyard isn't a good deck in this deck I found. My version runs more of a ritual base with Tinder Wall and Desperate Rituals. Single player mana excel is the way to go here. Vineyards give them a turn 1 Negator, Rule of Law, Arcane Lab, just so many threats to the deck. Sideboard maybe, but I just wouldn't run it it's too risky.

[Caleb]

Kizzy: It really depends on the deck. If you look at my list, you'll notice it's not average. 2 lands, 3 colors, and an expensive living wish combo make me love the Vineyard. Filtering the GG through a Chromatic Sphere is golden, golden I say! Besides that, Vineyard insures you're going to have the mana to both play and activate the belcher next turn.

With ESG, Living Wishes, Chromatic Spheres, Belchers, Tinder Walls, land grants, and Meditates sucking up the green mana, any deck that'll be running countermagic will be taking more burn from the vineyards than you will (except for landstill, of course)

Thresh doesn't draw that many threats, and they're so low costed that they'd be playing them anyway. They need an extremely aggressive hand to really take advantage of vineyard, and if they have one of those then their control department is weaker than normal, meaning you have less disruption to wade through.

DRUGS: White belcher is a different deck, and probably wont like Vineyards. My build loves it like no other.

"Also please stop talking about turn 1 Lackey.Currently turn 1 lackey seems to be the most discussed Situation in MTG.Turn 1 Lackey is quite a rare case and even then you should outrace them.When they don´t have turn 1 lackey(which is most of the time) they will gain tremendous advantage from Vineyard."

So you can race the turn one lackey... but not if they have vineyard mana? If you'd even LOOKED at the matchup you might realize that's not true. Outside of the insanely improbably scenerio I showed, they cannot get a turn two kill. Ever. Meaning, you can always race gobblins.

Roodmistah: You, and those naysayers before you, are responding with fear. Sometimes in magic fear is warranted, sometimes not. Think about Dark Confidant, and all those nubs who played 4x sensei's divining top along side of them, because they feared the life loss. Now laugh. Now look at Vineyards again. No tier one deck runs Negators, Rule of Laws, or Arcane Labs in their sb. If you know those cards are coming in, then you should be sbing the vineyards out, not in. (I probably would keep the vineyards in for the Negator scenerio though, I'm pretty sure I can race a 4 turn clock.)

I'm not saying Vineyard is good in every Belcher deck. Different card choices lead to different mana needs. I think any living wish variant should md 4 though.

[Dr.ugs]

You sir, are a COMPLETE idiot. Turn 1 Lacky is so feared because its QUITE COMMON!!! Ask anyone, they will all tell you that lacky comes down almost half the games that Goblins plays. Maybe since you live in the middle of nowhere you dont play against very good Goblin players (or maybe your not a very good player yourself) but people do this thing called AGGRESSIVE MULLIGANS! They mull down to a vial or lacky most of the time, and since they play 4, its not an issue too much.


The point is that they won&#180;t outrace you even with turn 1 Lackey so aggresive mulligans don&#180;t make the difference.Lackey wont hurt as much as a needle.
I would rather fear discard and counterspell than turn 1 lackey when playing a combo deck that wins on turn 2...

Oh and the card is called Goblin Lackey.

When you play Vineyard you give them more options so they can outrace you wihthout turn 1 Lackey.Like casting Goblin Tinkerer for less mana(with Tinkerer they can slow you down and outrace you and with Matron which can also be cast with Vineyard Mana they can get Tinkerer and most Goblin Decks run multiple Tinkerers afaik)

But I do would run Vineyard if I would run the Living Wish based version(which also offers a lot of interresting options but it never turned out to be succesfull allthough it is played quite often)

[Eldariel]

Just thinking, if one is playing against Belcher, what should one set the Chalice to? Which is more damaging; Chalice for 0 or Chalice for 1?

Btw, GAT, calling people idiots will help nobody.

[SillyMetalGAT]

Chalice for 0 cuts off all the free mana, so you would essentially have to run off of Land Grant, Ritual. 0 hurts a lot.

I called him an idiot for the stupid remark he made to Bane.

As for Dr.ugs, how do you think Goblins races combo? Lackey into a heavy threat. Sorry I spelt lackEy wrong, I didn't know I was dealing with an English major.

[Caleb]

(which also offers a lot of interresting options but it never turned out to be succesfull allthough it is played quite often)

No, it isn't played more than regular belcher, and for the little it is played it seems to do well. I know I place consistantly with it. The highest placing belcher list at a larger tourney I've seen ran Living Wish, so I guess I'm not too sure were you got that idea.

Tinker does next to nothing. For one, they generally only run one in the md. If they spend the time to get it via matron, it wont be operating until turn 3. If they cast it turn one off of vineyard mana, you should be winning on your second turn anyway. Even if you don't, what are they going to hit with it? A chrome mox? Heaven forbid... them having a terrible version of wasteland... it's a good thing they don't run actual wastelands... oh wait...

SillyMetalGAT: Don't forget tinder wall, Elvish Spirit Guide, and some lists run cabal ritual/living wish/vineyard/BoP.

If you're on the play, chalice for 0 is correct. On the Draw, it's probably better set at 1.

[Kizzy]

Wow. Thank you Caleb. That was actually a very helpful and insightful reply. :smile:

As for what to set Chalice to: I think it depends on the game state. Like Caleb said, whether you're on the play or draw factors in. On the play it's probably good for 0. On the draw, 1 would most likely be better. However, if I'm on the draw and they've played Land Grant or just dropped their land already, I'd consider putting a Chalice at 0. This is because if they've already put a land on the table, I'd be fearing the lose next turn from an LED. It probably just depends on the situation. Chalice at 1 hoses more stuff, most of their acceleration. Chalice at 0 hoses their LED which is often their key to win, and it basically hoses their "land". Belcher's land almost goes by the name of Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal. I say this because in Belcher Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal act a lot more like a land drop than they do as acceleration, a lot of the time.

[Rambo]

Recently I saw a decklist with living wish maindeck, and auriok salvagers sideboard. In game two you can wish for salvagers, maybe sacing LED in response, and draw your deck with chromatic sphere. From their you could belch them, Or pyrite spellbomb them to death. Theirfore I would run pyrite spellbomb maindeck (1), and salvagers and Maga in the board.

[Caleb]

Thanks for the acknowledgement Kizzy. Informative/insightful is what I aim for, though I don't always hit it.


Recently I saw a decklist with living wish maindeck, and auriok salvagers sideboard. In game two you can wish for salvagers, maybe sacing LED in response, and draw your deck with chromatic sphere. From their you could belch them, Or pyrite spellbomb them to death. Theirfore I would run pyrite spellbomb maindeck (1), and salvagers and Maga in the board.

Yeah, I pioneered the salvagers combo style version of belcher a long time ago, shortly after the seperate banned/restricted list for legacy was announced. If the list you saw wasn't mine, it was probably inspired by mine.

Pyrite isn't necessary, as you can draw out your deck, meaning you draw any belchers you need. If they have something on the board stopping you from using belchers (ie: pithing needle) then you can simply cast another wish for an answer to it (I keep woodripper in my side for the case of multiple pithing needles), and start belching away.

If you simply need to go infinate (say they're playing life or something stupid like that), or your belchers are extracted, then I like Skeletal Vampire>Maga. Skeletal Vampire also serves as a decent wish target without the combo, to buy you the turns you need vs. aggro or to beat down vs. control.

[SillyMetalGAT]

This may have been brought up a zillion times and it may be a poor choice, but what is everyone's thought on Helm of Awakening? Is it worth it to make cards like Plunge, Sphere, Belcher, and Cabal Ritual cost 1 less? I haven't tested it but it looks like it would help a lot on paper..... probably not the best thing to drop against aggro either.....

[Bane of the Living]

I would say no cause your not playing Nausea. You dont need to cast a bunch of shit on one turn. I like the idea of playing a turn one Vineyard or Tinderwall much much more than a helm.

Helm cost 2 making it hard to cast turn one unless you waste a tinder wall or a esg or a lotus petal. All of those accelerants are better spent trying to play and activate belcher. If you actually did cast helm turn 1 you need to play at least 2 spells to break even with your investment. At that point your 3rd spell that costs 1 less is now your first point of advantage with the helm. That sucks. That sucks bad. Lets not forget that helm also helps our opponent. At least opponents have less to use 2 green mana on and can result in mana burn.

[magicxsoldier]

has anyone tried playtesting this with infernal tutor?

[Bane of the Living]

Yes, its very very good when it works. Getting extra copies of Belcher against control is a god send. Im having trouble getting use of the Demonic Tutor effect though, belcher doesnt always empty its hand well.

Tutor is definitly a go guys. A+

I hope its not gonna go for $15-20.

Welcome back Belcher!

[Caleb]

Infernal Tutor: IR Sack LED. You probably shouldn't even need to do that.

I got second in our 1.5 this week with my build of two land, with a couple differences. Like, I threw the deck together at the last minute, and I forgot the duress's...

I noticed that it made the deck more consistant though. If thresh wasn't everywhere, taking out the md duress's might be the right call.

Basically I did -4 duress, -1 Lim Duls Vault, -2 Night's Whispers, +4 Goblin Welder, +3 Meditate in the md.

Meditate was the shit, btw. So long as you play with it correctly... Like, if your opponent cant kill you with an extra turn, (a gobblin player wasted me turn one, so I dropped it on my turn two with him having nothing in play, it was the shit. I did similar things vs. Thresh too) or by casting it on the last turn you possibly can to still have a chance to win, so it seems like a desperation measure but it's not really, as you've already seen a good bit of cards.

[Bane of the Living]

It sounds like another great reason to play Vineyard to me. I agree with you, its sick. I havent even tried Living Wish yet. See anything out of Dissension?

[tsabo_tavoc]

Yes, its very very good when it works. Getting extra copies of Belcher against control is a god send. Im having trouble getting use of the Demonic Tutor effect though, belcher doesnt always empty its hand well.

Tutor is definitly a go guys. A+

I hope its not gonna go for $15-20.

Welcome back Belcher!
But tutor costs 2 mana, can the deck win after turn 2?
Till now, Infernal Tutor is no more than 5$!

[Xkevin.meloncholicX]

I just put together a Belcher deck and i've been goldfishing it for about 4 hours now. It has very consitant turn 2 kills. I have yet to pull off a turn 1 win, not sure if I forgot something or messed up on a card count somewhere and that's why it's refusing to win turn 1.

Land\\
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

Mana Accelerants\\
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Land Grant

Tutors\\
4 Plunge into Darkness
3 Spoils of the Vault
3 Infernal Tutor

Disruption\\
4 Duress

Win\\
4 Goblin Charbelcher

Sideboard\\
4 Oxidize
4 Goblin Welder
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Ghastly Demise

My meta is very diverse, so I just tried to create a "blanket" board. Infernal Tutor works very well for me in this build. Most of the time I use it to fetch a second copy of Seething Song enabling me to play and activate Goblin Charbelcher. I considered Playing the Vinyard/Living Wish version but i thought it more effective to go with the straight forward version. Perhaps a sideboard that transforms it into a Vinyard/Living Wish version. Any one notice anything that i forgot please let me know. Thanks.

[APriestOfGix]

Here is the list I am currently Running, it's based of Team Meandecks recomended list for Ziv at Legacy Worlds 2005

4 x Goblin Charbelcher
4 x Spoils of the Vault
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Lion's Eye Diamond
4 x Chromatic Sphere
4 x Land Grant
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Dark Ritual
4 x Cabal Ritual
4 x Tinderwall
3 x Night's Whisper
3 x Living Wish
4 x Duress
4 x Chrome Mox
4 x Elvish Spirt Guide
1 x Bayou
1 x Taiga

Board:
1 x Goblin Welder
1 x Viridian Shamen
4 x Xantid Swarm
4 x Oxidize
2 x Pyroblast
2 x Red Elemental Blast
1 x City of Brass

Reasons for card inclusion:


Goblin Charbelcher - It's how the deck wins.

Spoils of the Vault - Gives you 8 Charbelchers, worth playing even w/ the 8% chance of dying trying to find a 4 of.

Brainstorm - Limited Card Drawing, and is cheep to cast, and digs deep.

Lion's Eye Diamond - "Free" activation of charbelcher, great card.

Chromatic Sphere - Mana fixing, and draws a card.

Land Grant - Finds lands, and can be used to shuffle after a brainstorm.

Lotus Petal - "Free" mana.

Dark Ritual - Mana accelerant.

Cabal Ritual - Mana accelerant.

Tinderwall - blocks against aggro and is a mana accelerant.

Night's Whisper - Limited card drawing.

Living Wish - Gives Game 1 answer to Pithing Needle and counters.

Duress - Trys to clear the way for charbelcher.

Chrome Mox - "Free" mana.

Elvish Spirt Guide - "Free" mana.

Bayou - Searchable w/ Land Grant, gives blact to use most of your acclerant.

Taiga - Doubles damage from belcher, gives mana to play a wished welder.

Board:
Goblin Welder - Bring back a countered charbelcher for a sphere or mox.

Viridian Shamen - Answer to game 1 Pithing Needle, or other bad atrifacts.

Xantid Swarm - Used against control.

Oxidize - Pithing Needle guard, brought in like 99% of the time even if you don't know if the needle is there.

Pyroblast - Helps against counters.

Red Elemental Blast - Helps against counters.

City of Brass - Wishable mana fixer.

[BoardinCharlie]

I'm slightly confused by your build...you have 8 *12 if you count LED* blue sources for 4 cards in your deck? Yeah brainstorm is very powerful cause it digs and hides....but how often do you get to cast this spell without stressing out your mana?

[APriestOfGix]

I'm slightly confused by your build...you have 8 *12 if you count LED* blue sources for 4 cards in your deck? Yeah brainstorm is very powerful cause it digs and hides....but how often do you get to cast this spell without stressing out your mana?


Quite often, and if i can't cast it, i don't mind it can get imprinted on a Mox, it never is a dead card, and the 8 sources are good enough to get it cast when it needs to be cast.

[Lego]

Quite often, and if i can't cast it, i don't mind it can get imprinted on a Mox, it never is a dead card, and the 8 sources are good enough to get it cast when it needs to be cast.

I count 12 sources, at least in theory. Chrome Mox with an imprinted Brainstorm, Lotus Petal, and Chromatic Sphere.

Just looking at the list it doesn't seem too explosive. What do your typical goldfishes look like? I'd probably stick to a two-color list, and Pentad Prism has been a godsend as far as I'm concerned. I'd post my list, but it's pretty standard and I haven't played it in a long time. I was just curious how consistant that thing was :smile:

[APriestOfGix]

Just looking at the list it doesn't seem too explosive. What do your typical goldfishes look like? I'd probably stick to a two-color list, and Pentad Prism has been a godsend as far as I'm concerned. I'd post my list, but it's pretty standard and I haven't played it in a long time. I was just curious how consistant that thing was :smile:


I usually godfish around turn 1-2 60% of time w/ nothing, and 20% turn 2 w/ a duress. So like turn 1-2 wins are around 60% and 20% of that is w/ a duress. I also really like the Wish, as against control you have answers to maindeck Pithing Needle (Shaman), Counters (Swarm, Welder), and Mana (City)

[APriestOfGix]

Deck List:

1 x Bayou
1 x Taiga
3 x Goblin Welder
3 x Living Wish
4 x Chrome Mox
4 x Dark Ritual
4 x Cabal Ritual
4 x Brainstorm - May become Gamble as the welders are here now...
4 x Chromatic Sphere
4 x Duress
4 x Tinder Wall
4 x Elvish Spirit Guide
4 x Land Grant
4 x Spoils of the Vault
4 x Goblin Charbelcher
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Lion's Eye Diamond

Sideboard:
1 x Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 x Goblin Welder
1 x Viridian Shaman
4 x Xantid Swarm
4 x Oxidize
3 x Natrulize
1 x City of Brass


Card choices:
Living Wish - I use as a catch all safty net. I grabs welder against control, Dosan against High Tide, City when i need a land, and Shaman against Maindeck Needle.

Brainstorm - although U is hard to get in this build, Brainstorm is worth it. It digs 3 deep and Land Grant shuffles for free after it. May become Gamble because of the power of Welder.

Chromatic Sphere - fixes mana troubles and draws a card. Great for slow play hands.

Duress - Amazing for control matchup, and gets inprinted against aggro.

Dosan - Currently my only answer to help slow down High Tide so they don't race me, although im not sure how good he is as by the time i cast him, they should be able to go off in responce. (1st to pull if better card arises)

Welder - Amazing against control, most wished card.

City - Amazing, it helps a lot to get the last 1 mana to go off, 2ed most wished card

Shamen - It has saved my ** many a time from maindeck random needle, or null rod.

Naturalize & Oxidize - I find the 1 mana oxidize very helpful, but Naturalize is nessary as I lose to many enchantments w/o it. (Confinement, Worship, random stuff) will be first card to replace if something better arises.


Match Ups:

I have a great game against aggro, i can win at what ever speed i want and they usually have nothing to stop me.

Control is not as hard as it would seem. I have a fast clock, the only problem is playing into Force of Will. I have a bad game 1 against control, but games 2 & 3 are amazing as i have gone off under Mage, Null Rod, and 2 FoW too many times.

Combo is the biggest problem. Unlike control with it's slow win, Combo is packing FoW and still also races me. This is the hardest thing as FoW stalls me quite a bit, and they combo off turn's 4-6.

Good Match-ups:
Goblins
Random Aggro
Confinement
Dead Guy
Suicide
Combo w/o permission (Im faster by a fair ammount)

Medium Match-ups:
Thresh
Fish
Iggy Pop
Anything w/ FoW and a slow clock

Bad Match-ups:
Anything w/ FoW and a Fast clock
High Tide

[Sugar Woof]

this is the list I ran at day one of d4d to a 4-2 drop finish being one win away from top 8 and getting paired down and losing

4 goblin charbelcher
2 living wish
3 goblin welder
4 land grant
4 elvish spirit guide
4 tinder wall
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 chromatic sphere
4 spoils of the vault
4 brainstorm
4 duress
4 lion's eye diamond
4 chrome mox
4 lotus petal
1 gamble
1 taiga
1 bayou

sb:
4 xantid swarm
4 dark confidant(I love this in the sb of this deck)
4 oxidize
1 city of brass
1 goblin welder
1 uktabi orangutang

I faced 2 thresh/1 iggy pop/1 duck hunt/1 survival advantage/1 angel stompy. My losses were to thresh in rounds 2 and 6. The only thing with the list that I'd change would be to change the gamble to an Infernal Tutor. I chose to roll with Gamble because it was a 1cc tutor and cast early in your combo you have a good chance of keeping the gambled card and it also has interactions with goblin welder.

Dark Confidant in the sb: This was udderly fantastic out of the board, it single handedly won my a match for me and gave me the cards needed to combo out in a few other matches.

It's a pretty standard list of the deck, only off beat things are Bob in the sb and 1 x Gamble in the md.

comments/views/feedback please
Big Sug Woof

[Windux]

What do you Board out for the Confidants and against which decks do you board them in?

[Sugar Woof]

What do you Board out for the Confidants and against which decks do you board them in?

Normally I board out -1 brainstorm/-1 chromatic sphere/-1 spoils of the vault/-1 gamble, but depending on the matchup I may board out 4 x duress or all of the brainstorms.

I usually board them in against control, I brought them in against angel stompy in round 1 of d4d and it won me the match in game 3 by giving me the ca to combo. Also, against thresh variants and decks with disruption and very much slower clocks than say something like gobs. Most control builds board out the stp's or other removal in game 2 so Bob is likely to stay on board to keep your card advantage up to combo.

[APriestOfGix]

I like you build (it's 1 card off mine, lol).

Sideboard i i'm not sure about the Cinfidants, I find that Naturlize is really needed, as there ar just to many thing you want to kill, Challice, Needle, Rod, etc. And then there are the enchantments, Worship, Confinement, etc.


Everything else is great, it's nice to see somebody do well with what i think is the best build. Oh BTW this build (my build, Suger Wolfs, and Another copy of mine) have all placed in Top 25, of 100+ tourny's, Mine took 21th in Online Tourny, Other took 22ed in SCG D4D's #2 and this took 24th in SCG D4D's #5

[Sugar Woof]

as for confidant out of the sb, i'd deffinetly recommend him over naturalize in the sb, and confinement/worship aren't seeing very much play right now for naturalize really to deserve slots in the sb

[Blair Phoenix]

I'm going to guess Chromatic Sphere is going to become Chromatic Star when Time Spiral becomes legal?

[Sugar Woof]

I'm going to guess Chromatic Sphere is going to become Chromatic Star when Time Spiral becomes legal?

In almost every way it is better, the one fault to it I've found is the interactions with Leyline/planar void. And that's not enough to keep it out of the deck.

[magicxsoldier]

how is chromatic star better than chromatic sphere??