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Ewokslayer
05-04-2007, 11:08 AM
This thread is for the discussion of the following Belcher list.

This is the List that I top 8ed Kadilack's Dual Land Draft 3
My Tournament Report can be found here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5673)
CRET Belcher
4 Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rites of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
3 Tinder Wall
4 Wild Cantor

SB
3 REB
2 Pyroblast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Duress
1 Simplify
1 Cave in
1 Pyroclasm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens


This list originally did very well in Quebec GPT (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=122478&postcount=297) by ins0mniaque
The basic premise is simple. Open a hand with a win condition and mana and then kill your opponent before they can do anything about it.

Card Choices
Kill
Belcher, Burning Wish, and Empty the Warrens
These are the deck's kill conditions. They are efficient, difficult to deal with turn 1 and Burning Wish can fiind utility sorceries if needed.
Mana
Most of the mana cards is fairly straightforward.
The questionable cards seem to be Dark Ritual, # of Tinder Walls, and # of Wild Cantors.
Dark Ritual is one of only two cards that produce +2 mana all the time (Seething Song being the other)
With the inclusion of Dark Ritual 4 Wild Cantors are required inorder to more consistantly provide black mana to cast the Ritual.
The deck only runs 3 Tinder Walls for a number of reasons.
1) The deck has a problem producing more than one green mana turn 1 thus mulitple Tinder Walls are sometimes difficult to cast.
2) Dark Ritual is a better mana card and you need Wild Cantors to cast them.

Sideboard
One of the problems with a deck like this is sideboarding. There are very few truly dead cards as all the cards are either mana or kill. Thus you will usually not board many cards.
Protection
5 Blasts
These are your tools against Blue control. I usually board out some number of Land Grants, Tinder Walls, and Wild Cantors. If I board out 2 Wild Cantors I usually board out a Dark Ritual as Well
4 Shattering Spree
3 are for boarding leaving you one to wish for if necessary.
I usually board out 2 Cantors and a Dark Ritual for them.
Wish Board
The Wishboard is very flexible.
There is an Empty the Warrens for a tutorable kill.
Infernal can be used as both a means to find a belcher or up the storm count for Empty the Warrens.
The Rest
1 Duress
1 Simplify
1 Cave in
1 Pyroclasm
I am fairly disappointed with these slots as they don't do much. But, as a combo deck of this nature you won't be using most of your board anyway.
I would like to fit in a Tendrils of Agony inorder to finish the job of an early Warrens.

Matchups.
I think one of the strongest points of the deck is that it forces your opponent to play according to new rules. Players will have to pitch good hands or keep bad hands based solely on the presence of an answer to your deck. So even if they answer you the first time, they might not be able to answer you the second or third time.
All Agro.
You are favored. You kill before they get they get going and for the most part they can't do anything against you.

Other Combo
Solidarity should be slightly favorable as they need a FOW in order to stall the game long enough to combo off in response to you. But you have a much faster clock.
TES is unfairable assuming they get a turn. Their go off is stronger and can get a higher storm count fairly easily.

Control
Board Control
You can easily race most board sweepers so ETW can go all the way and belcher can usually kill them in one swoop.
Counter based Control
They have force which is bad but that is generally the only relevant counter that they can cast this early. The combination of them having to mulligan for a force and then pitching a card for it can often them with no threats and no answers to you in later turns.
Agro Control
Most agro Control have more answers to early threats that traditional control and as such provide a harder matchup for belcher.
Winning isn't out of the question but I don't feel confidant in that matchup.
Black Based Disruption.
A well timed duress can be very dangerous but you can usually recover of ignore it depending on your hand.
I have found that playing against Red Death is very favorable game one and only becomes an issue game 2 and 3.

Happy Gilmore
05-04-2007, 11:45 AM
I can attest the consistency of this deck. I was watching Brian at times in his later rounds at Kadi's DLD and it makes me sick how many times the deck goes off turn 1.

Shriekmaw
05-04-2007, 12:16 PM
The Rest
1 Duress
1 Simplify
1 Cave in
1 Pyroclasm



I would briefly like to go over the following slots in the wish board to see if there are some better choices out there. I do like pyroclasm as a wish target, but I'm not extremely happy with the other three. I can understand Cave-In as another way to kill a meddling mage, but usually if they have 2 mages, they will go for kill condition, then burning wish. The only time mage is a problem is game 1, b/c in the other games you will have pyroblast or REB to help kill it.

I'm not sure how good Overmaster would be in the board, I'm remember running it when Flame Vault was a very good deck back in GP: Philly. I almost never wish for Cave-In, Duress, or Simplify. Any thoughts about better wish targets?

Ewokslayer
05-04-2007, 12:29 PM
I actually like Cave In more than Pyroclasm as wasting 4 mana to wish for and cast pyroclasm usually costs you more cards than pitching a red card to Cave in.
Simplify is the only answer the deck has to Confinement and can kill Plague if ETW is the only kill in your hand.
Duress was pretty awful I wished for it once and it was a mistake.
I don't think this deck can slow roll its win conditions by wishing for OVermaster first then trying to win.

herbig
05-04-2007, 12:40 PM
The lack of permanent mana sources makes Burning Wish more or less just Warrens 5-7. The mana investment involved with wishing for a card leaves you completely spent, so if you're not wishing for Warrens, you've probably lost.

Cave-in's ability to also deal the last few points of damage you might need makes it worth it.

The problem is, what else can you really sideboard in this deck? On the play, you might be able to use Chalice, in order to lock opposing combo decks out after getting some Tokens.

Shriekmaw
05-04-2007, 12:53 PM
I can see where Cave-In is just better since you can pitch a card to have it deal 2 damage to everything plus players. I guess the one card I'm not happy with is duress as a target, would tendils be better or is that too mana intensive for a target?

Peter_Rotten
05-04-2007, 01:15 PM
I was curious as to why we should run Cave-In over Massacre? I think (maybe incorrectly) that most creatures that we would like to kill with Cave-In can be killed with Massacre for only the cost of the Burning Wish. Meddling Mage and True Believer are the creatures that pop into mind. Will we really need to control the board against Goblins?

Finn
05-04-2007, 01:27 PM
Yep. I have this built right now almost card for card. I have also experienced very reliable combo on turn one or two. Of course, with ETW, it takes a couple of turns to win after that.

Just the same, I would definitely not play this deck at the GP. The environment will be toxic for it. ETW is completely useless against Flash and everyone will have anti-combo on the brain.

Ewokslayer
05-04-2007, 01:50 PM
I was curious as to why we should run Cave-In over Massacre? I think (maybe incorrectly) that most creatures that we would like to kill with Cave-In can be killed with Massacre for only the cost of the Burning Wish. Meddling Mage and True Believer are the creatures that pop into mind. Will we really need to control the board against Goblins?

I don't think you can really rely on having a swamp in play.
Though there is no reason you can't run both as you can drop either Duress or Pyroclasm, or both and replace them with Massacre and Tendrils.

freakish777
05-04-2007, 02:43 PM
Tendrils isn't really a good idea at all. Essentially you'd only ever get it with your opponent already at 8~14, as the deck has a hard time getting above 7 storm.


One of the problems I have with the deck is that when it does mulligan it seems to do so into oblivion. Additionally, with 22 0cc mana and 11 win conditions, I'm getting about a 75% chance of opening atleast one of each in your opening hand (someone show me the math if I'm wrong), which means you'll mulligan about 25% of the time, which seems a little high. Keeping the mana base constant (as I'm pretty sure its as good as it can get) here's the statistics on opening a 0cc mana and a win condition in your opening grip:

11: 75%
12: 78%
13: 81%
14: 83%
15: 85%
16: 87%

Now with more win conditions you also risk opening 2 in your hand and being stuck without enough mana, so here's the chance of opening 2 win conditions in your hand for various number of win conditions:

11: 39%
12: 43%
13: 48%
14: 52%
15: 57%
16: 61%

Burning Wish, EtW, and Belcher all being in the deck at the same time means that when you open 2 of them, you're guarenteed 1 dead card (barring Chrome Mox). If you go to more win conditions, I think it's probably correct to use a different tutor than BWish to ensure that you can grab a mana source if you've got another win in hand, I also think it's obviously correct to go to more win conditions if at all possible.

From Brian's report, he mulliganned 4 times over the day, playing 16 games (round 6 ID, not play out the finals, 2 matches had 3 games), which falls in line with the 25%. One thing I would like to ask is how often you kept hands that had a 0cc mana, a win, but not an immediate "combo" (ie, you have to topdeck some mana to make something work, be it put Belcher into play without activating it, or make a bunch of tokens, putting Belcher into play without activating it and relying on the top of your deck for mana #3 seems acceptable). I think you probably mulligan a little less aggressively than I do, and it seems like it pays off for you, essentially if you mulligan to 5 or less your odds of winning with this deck drop off drastically.

If someone brings this exact list to the GP and plays a full 16-20 games with it over 8 rounds and doesn't mulligan atleast 2 of those games, I'd highly suspect them of cheating.

Ewokslayer
05-04-2007, 02:47 PM
I don't see mulliganing 4 times throughout a day being bad.
I would certainly keep a hand that could drop belcher and not activate. Especially if it could active next turn easily.

Most of the deck is mana so planing on drawing mana isn't too far fetched.

What other tutor can you use besides Burning Wish that doesn't
1) suck
2) only work under specific conditions.

Jaynel
05-04-2007, 03:03 PM
I run a Regrowth in my sideboard. It's a pretty techy play especially when you pop LEDs in response to the Wish.

Edit: Would Goblin War Strike be tech or just terrible? I can think of occasions when I've had Empty the Warrens and Burning Wish in hand and went for a Duress of something. It acts as another combat phase for your tokens, kinda.

freakish777
05-04-2007, 04:28 PM
I don't see mulliganing 4 times throughout a day being bad.
I would certainly keep a hand that could drop belcher and not activate. Especially if it could active next turn easily.

Hm, I didn't write that the best that I could have. My question was more along the lines:

Did you keep any hands that couldn't make the mana for ETW or Belcher (but had a 0cc mana) and simply relied and drawing a mana source in order to even cast Belcher?

Like I said, I'm pretty sure playing Belcher without activating is acceptable.




What other tutor can you use besides Burning Wish that doesn't
1) suck
2) only work under specific conditions.

Infernal Tutor as a 3 of might work? Also, IT for a Rite of Flame/Rit/LED/Seething Song in for a turn 2 Belch isn't bad when it comes up.

EDIT: IT does of course only grab a win condition when your hand is empty, however, with all the mana in the deck, I don't find emptying my hand difficult at all. As already mentioned, there's some cases where you grab Dark Rit/Rite of Flame #2 and combo next turn with Belcher.

Here's an example of a hand I recently fished:

Land Grant
Land Grant
Infernal Tutor
Infernal Tutor
Rite of Flame
Simean Spirit Guide
Tinder Wall

Plays as:

LG for Bayou, RFG SSG, play IT for Rite of Flame, pass the turn. Topdeck mana, play mana out, IT for Belcher, play Belcher, go for turn 3. I think in this scenario, I drew Ritual or LED and won on the same turn, however a hand with double IT's is definitely sketchy, and topdecking an EtW in that scenario is essentially catastrophic. In comparison though to a deck with out IT, it's a definite mulligan, and possibly a game loss (if you mull again).

A quick last note, each game you mulligan, you're going to have an even higher percentage of mulliganning afterwards, so over the course of 8 rounds, you're somewhat likely to mulligan to 5 or 4 once* (again, drastically increasing your chances of losing with this deck, mull to 6 isn't bad though just undesirable).

* Which happens to be about the same percentage of the time you'll actually Spoils yourself out of a game (including games you don't play it), so that may be another Tutor to consider.

Henk
05-05-2007, 04:24 AM
Are the Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast better than Xantid Swarm?

Is black really needed? Couldn't it go with just red/green. I sometimes have problems getting the black mana for the dark ritual...

Zilla
05-05-2007, 04:56 AM
The lack of permanent mana sources makes Burning Wish more or less just Warrens 5-7. The mana investment involved with wishing for a card leaves you completely spent, so if you're not wishing for Warrens, you've probably lost.
Working under this premise, Infernal Tutor is simply better than Burning Wish. It gives you another black card to pitch to Chrome Mox, which improves overall consistency. It can fetch either EtW or Belcher. It can get you another mana producer when you need it, which Burning Wish cannot.

People who have played with this deck some know that emptying your hand is essentially a guarantee; you drop permanent mana sources, play all your sorcery and instant speed accelleration, and if there's no win condition in your hand, it's empty aside from Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish.

The only time Infernal Tutor is bad is when there are two of them in your hand and you don't have Chrome Mox to pitch one of them to or an LED to crack in response.

So it begs the question: if you've essentially already lost the game if you're not Wishing for Warrens, what reason is there not to run Infernal Tutor in its stead? Is the utility of Wish really better than the consistency and versatility of Infernal Tutor? This isn't a rhetorical question. Does the deck become unviable if it can't Wish for answers to certain problems?

For reference, the Wishless list I've been testing is identical to Ewok's list except for the following changes: -4 Burning Wish, -1 Belcher, +4 Infernal Tutor, +1 Tinder Wall. Most of my testing has just been goldfishing though, so I can't say with any certainty that it's the correct way to go.


EDIT: I didn't see freakish's post before I posted about Infernal Tutor. It's been really good for me. I tested Spoils as well, but it's less consistent and far riskier than Infernal.

CalebD
05-05-2007, 06:51 AM
You run into more problems than just double infernal/no mox-LED. You also run into Pithing Needle/Meddling Mage on Belcher, and if Infernal and Belch are in your hand you're probably going to lose if you don't draw a LED quick, since belcher can't even pitch to mox.

Also, the more black you add to the deck, the worse Wild Cantor becomes. I ran into this problem with my build (which admittedly runs a LOT of black.) I'm going to do my best to explain why now, but don't be surprised if it doesn't make much sense, I'll edit it later for clarity.

The more black you add to the deck, the less likely it will be that you need Cantor. Situations start occuring when you have a black imprint, and thus have no need of Cantor, yet you're still drawing them. The more black cards you add, the more likely it will be that you're hurting for red mana, and Cantor is completely useless.

The Color requirements in this deck are very subtle, and any shift (say, switching tutors) should lead to some necessary re-structurings of the deck to maintain consistency.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you're running Infernal Tutor instead of Burning Wish then cantor probably shouldn't be in the deck, you should probably be running Cabal rituals, and I'd reccomend seriously considering tendrils and iggy as well.

freakish777
05-05-2007, 01:17 PM
Double IT hands are pretty bad, but sometimes managable. If you've got a Rite of Flame or Dark Ritual in your hand, you can usually go "IT for Rite/Rit" next turn IT for Belcher and play it, win turn 3/4. The question is whether or not a turn 3/4 kill is better than a mulligan. Since I'm playing some IT's on top of BWishes at the moment, a double IT hand would have been an auto-mulligan since the ITs would have mana sources instead. Instead I end up with a choice of turn 3/4 or mull and try for better.

ReAnimated
05-05-2007, 10:18 PM
Quick question, what does this deck do vs. Hulk im asumming u just race em to the combo

herbig
05-06-2007, 11:58 AM
The added black cards along with the situations where Infernal is bad make IT bad in this version of Belcher, in my opinion.

You go from 11 to 12 win conditions but will mulligan more times from Infernal Tutor than from not having a win in your opening hand. Also, Infernal for Belcher doesn't come up often enough to be relevant to the discussion.

@reAnimated: this deck came out before Flash was realized. You can't do a whole lot against them, aside from try to race with Belcher, Warrens if they have a bad hand, and side in Blasts. Its a bad match-up for sure. Sideboard Leylines might not be a bad idea.

Kilz88
05-06-2007, 03:25 PM
The added black cards along with the situations where Infernal is bad make IT bad in this version of Belcher, in my opinion.

You go from 11 to 12 win conditions but will mulligan more times from Infernal Tutor than from not having a win in your opening hand. Also, Infernal for Belcher doesn't come up often enough to be relevant to the discussion.

@reAnimated: this deck came out before Flash was realized. You can't do a whole lot against them, aside from try to race with Belcher, Warrens if they have a bad hand, and side in Blasts. Its a bad match-up for sure. Sideboard Leylines might not be a bad idea.

Adding leylines is about the only idea. I would definitly board them seeing how red and green do not have answers to the Cap'n (thats what I am calling HulkFlash..."Cap'n Crunch"). The best answers include leyline, swords, stifle, and spell snare. The only one we have access to with this deck is leyline. You side out the 3 ETWs in your deck and 1 burning wish for 4 leylines. The End.

Meister_Kai
05-07-2007, 09:56 PM
Would a sideboard of:

(list)
-1 Duress
-1 REB
-1 Shattering Spree
-1 Pyroclasm

+4 Leyline of the void

be seen as acceptable?

kicks_422
05-08-2007, 09:11 AM
Having only 11 "win" cards in the deck (4 Belcher, 4 Burning Wish, 3 EtW), with the rest of the deck as mana, makes me draw too much mana and just wishing to topdeck a win card. Which is bad.

This is what I'm running. Contrary to what most say, Infernal Tutor is (IMHO) just needed in the deck where getting hellbent is as easy as winning with Flash.

1 Bayou
1 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Tinder Wall
4 Wild Cantor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide

3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish

4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens

Sideboard
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroblast (maybe Xantid Swarm is better here?)
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cave-In
1 Simplify
1 Duress
1 Hull Breach

I've cut the Seething Songs because getting to 5 mana is a lot less important than getting to 3-4. I've been trying this out and have been getting great results.

aTn
05-08-2007, 12:50 PM
Having only 11 "win" cards in the deck (4 Belcher, 4 Burning Wish, 3 EtW), with the rest of the deck as mana, makes me draw too much mana and just wishing to topdeck a win card. Which is bad.


Mmm... math is not in favor of your claim (see post #319 by Insomniaque on the 'old' Belcher thread http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=122741&postcount=319). As was said before, 11 win conditions is enough.

They should have called this deck mulligan.dec. A lot of the skill of playing it resides in choosing which hands are good/bad according to your match-up.

As anyone thought of Tremor as a possible SB choice for the mirror or against other EtW decks ? Someone at my local shop played it as a SB card in Goblins (because there were a lot of EtW decks around); he told me he enjoyed winning games seeing his overconfidant opponent lay down 12 tokens and pass turn one only to let him go Bloodstained Mire -> Mountain, (pause) Tremor.

Theoretically, (post Future Sight) Hulk-Flash's best winning play is faster than Belcher's, but in practice, HF seems more prone to bad hand syndrome (for example, having to Brainstorm to put Disciples on top of library, no-kill hands, etc.). Is it just me or has anyone noticed this from testing ?

Tacosnape
05-08-2007, 03:24 PM
Tacosnape's stupid idea of the day:

Has anyone thought about something ridiculous like Quagnoth in the board against blue-based aggro control decks packing heavy countermagic and Pithing Needle?

kicks_422
05-08-2007, 07:19 PM
Mmm... math is not in favor of your claim (see post #319 by Insomniaque on the 'old' Belcher thread http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=122741&postcount=319). As was said before, 11 win conditions is enough.

They should have called this deck mulligan.dec. A lot of the skill of playing it resides in choosing which hands are good/bad according to your match-up.


That's some good math there... But then again, most of the times (when it matters), you need 2-3 win conditions in hand. Would 14 ensure that?

Jaynel
05-08-2007, 07:37 PM
4 Pyroblast (maybe Xantid Swarm is better here?)


I'm also debating this point. My thoughts:

Xantid requires you to burn up a mana source (unless you have a Land Grant) if you want to play it turn 1. This sets you back at least 1 turn if you want protection, maybe more if you need to draw into something to replace the acceleration that you used up. However, Xantid would require U/W/x decks to keep in Swords to Plowshares, which is a dead card against a majority of the deck. Xantid also maintains protection over a few turns, not a one-shot deal like Pyroblast/REB.

Pyroblast/REB lets you go off turn 1; you only have to keep an extra R floating (not that big of a deal usually). Red mana is also much easier to access than green. However, Pyroblast is pretty bad against multiple counters (that's where Xantid Swarm shines). Pyroblast does take out Meddling Mages chanting Burning Wish or Empty the Warrens.

I think Pyroblast is better. This deck loves to go big on turns 1-3 before cantrips can find countermagic or other answers. Pyroblast is also able to answer Meddling Mage, Echoing Truth, or other hindrances.

Zilla
05-08-2007, 07:38 PM
That's some good math there... But then again, most of the times (when it matters), you need 2-3 win conditions in hand. Would 14 ensure that?
Weird. I typically mull hands with 2-3 win conditions in them.

kicks_422
05-08-2007, 07:48 PM
Weird. I typically mull hands with 2-3 win conditions in them.

Even against aggro-control? Having them counter a Belcher then follow it up with an EtW has been very nice.

Zilla
05-08-2007, 07:53 PM
Even against aggro-control? Having them counter a Belcher then follow it up with an EtW has been very nice.
Except that if I cast Belcher it probably means I used every other card in my hand to get enough mana to do it, at which point EtW is fucking awful. Why wouldn't you just cast EtW in the first place?

kicks_422
05-08-2007, 08:17 PM
True. I might have to rethink my rambling.

I was thinking of adding more resiliency to a deck that anchors its whole strategy on explosiveness. My bad.

Tacosnape
05-08-2007, 08:21 PM
Side note, after goldfishing a few hands with a build of this, wouldn't Pyroblast be far better than REB here, due to the fact that after a Seething Song you can Pyroblast anything, including your own Taiga, to up your ETW Storm Count if they don't have a Mage or mana for a Stifle?

bruno_tiete
05-14-2007, 09:13 PM
Side note, after goldfishing a few hands with a build of this, wouldn't Pyroblast be far better than REB here, due to the fact that after a Seething Song you can Pyroblast anything, including your own Taiga, to up your ETW Storm Count if they don't have a Mage or mana for a Stifle?

That's exactly what I would point. Pyro is +1 storm if needed be. Even in a split, if you think it's really needed to be paranoid about Meddling Mages, i think you should get more REBs than Pyros.

Other then that, I believe pyro is superior to Xantid Swarn for a couple reasons:
1- it allows you to go off now. You dont have to wait an pray for mercy on you swarn;
2- it destroys landed MMs;
3- it counters Echoing Truths, which spells LOL on your 36 goblin tokens;
4- it can be cast off of Simian Spirit Guide for that cool RED FORCE! play. Yeah, yeah. I have heard of the "danger of cool plays", but Forcing your opponent in a RG deck is actually good. Not only for WTF effect;
5- Pyros get double duty as HF hate, where Xantid are Counter-counter-measure only.

I actually think it could be good to run Maindeck Pyros.
I guess I will cut Black out and go for a RG version. Need to get wishes, though.

seymourws
05-17-2007, 05:10 PM
Hey, this is Chris Trembley from the RIT crew. I've been wondering why this build of Belcher doesn't run +1 Badlands in place of the Bayou. There are far more red spells that you want to cast than there are green spells, the majority of the time. The only spell that is really hurt in this configuration is Tinder Wall, which is a 3 of already. How often is Land Grant ever hard-cast, very rare to never, I would think.

Badlands have the added bonus of being a mountain, so for belcher activations assuming opponent is at 20 life, would only have to reveal 10 cards to be guarenteed the win.

Badlands seems like a fine idea when all of the cards that get boarded in are Red. Reb/Pyro's and Shattering Spree, since the others are wish targets.

Any thoughts?

Happy Gilmore
05-17-2007, 05:11 PM
Hey, this is Chris Trembley from the RIT crew. I've been wondering why this build of Belcher doesn't run +1 Badlands in place of the Bayou. There are far more red spells that you want to cast than there are green spells, the majority of the time. The only spell that is really hurt in this configuration is Tinder Wall, which is a 3 of already. How often is Land Grant ever hard-cast, very rare to never, I would think.

Badlands have the added bonus of being a mountain, so for belcher activations assuming opponent is at 20 life, would only have to reveal 10 cards to be guarenteed the win.

Badlands seems like a fine idea when all of the cards that get boarded in are Red. Reb/Pyro's and Shattering Spree, since the others are wish targets.

Any thoughts?

Not fetchable with Land Grant, thats the only reason.

Oh, and welcome to the source!

seymourws
05-17-2007, 05:16 PM
Yea, I just noticed, that. Haha, I feel pretty dumb, I guess I should read the cards in the deck. Thanks for pointing that out.

Ewokslayer
05-17-2007, 05:16 PM
Badlands seems poor due to Land Grant. I realize you mention this as a problem but then you dismiss it as being never hard-cast.
I don't think that is what you meant to say. Land Grant is almost never Hard Cast, you almost always reveal your hand and pay the alternate cost. However, that doesn't change the fact that either way the spell is cast you can't search for a non-Forest Land. Thus you will never find a Badlands. That would actually effect the level of functionality of 11 of your cards for the worse (3 Tinder Walls, 4 Land Grants, 4 Dark Rituals). If you are that worried about hitting the Bayou in a Belcher activation that much just drop black from the deck and put in a second Tiaga.

seymourws
05-17-2007, 05:20 PM
Hitting the bayou was never really a problem, I just forgot about how land grant works, I was thinking Badlands was tutorable, and there-fore strictly better than Bayou.

mikekelley
05-17-2007, 07:59 PM
What does CRET mean? Seriously.

MattH
05-17-2007, 08:58 PM
What does CRET mean? Seriously.
Charles' Rear Entry, pt. Two

Jak
05-17-2007, 10:38 PM
Is there an RG list I could have a peaksy at. I plan on getting this deck, but just unsure of a build. Right now here is my RBG.

1 Bayou
1 Taiga
4 Land Grant

3 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor

4 ESG
4 SSG
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song/Desperate Ritual/Cabal Ritual

3 Tinder Wall
4 Wild Cantor

I want to be sure I find my win conditions fast, so I think Infernal Tutor is needed. Now with the additional black cards, would Cabal Ritual be best to run? I can not decide between the 3 cards. Any help?

kicks_422
05-18-2007, 07:06 AM
Hey, that's almost my exact build that I posted (post #22)... With 3 Infernal Tutors MD and 1 in the SB instead, and I run Desperate Rituals between those 3 choices.

ReAnimated
06-02-2007, 02:07 AM
So.............are there any major changes in the deck , anyone find any tech or something?

tylerwylie
06-02-2007, 12:10 PM
What does CRET stand for?

b4r0n
06-02-2007, 12:48 PM
Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck? I'm not sure what they would replace, or whether it would work any better than the current build, but it certainly seems like a viable possibility.

NANTUKO_SHADY
06-02-2007, 01:06 PM
Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck? I'm not sure what they would replace, or whether it would work any better than the current build, but it certainly seems like a viable possibility.


I would either cut 4x Chrome Mox or cut 2x Desperate Ritual and 2x Wild Cantor.


It's tough to cut something in this deck, but that's what I would take out if I had to add 4x Street Wraith.

revenge_inc
06-02-2007, 01:30 PM
What does CRET stand for?

It was team CRET who arguably started the Belcher craze when 4 members of their team piloted it in a Legacy GPT in Montréal. All running the same list they came 1st, 2nd, 9th and ?th place. Ewokslayer kept the name CRET when he split in the finals at Kadis III and since then the "CRET" has stuck.


Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck?

I've been thinking the idea of Street Wraith's over and I think it may not be the best idea to include them. "gasp". Here me out people:

Advantage:
-You are now in effect running a 56 card deck, maximizing your chance of comboing out in a broken fashion.

Disadvantages:
-You loose 2 life (not a biggy-99% of the time you won't give a fuck)

-What happens when you get Street Wraiths in your opening hand? (The more you have in your opening hand, the more relevent this argument becomes). Sure, you can pitch it/them to draw a card but when deciding to mulligan or to keep your opening grip, you don't know what a Wraith will effectively replace. The Wraiths then add an element of uncertainty.

If you draw a borderline 5 card hand + 2 Wraiths, do you mulligan? If you "new" the other 2 cards you might or you might not. Whatever your decision with the Wraith hand, you're taking a risk.

Bane of the Living
06-02-2007, 05:04 PM
It was team CRET who arguably started the Belcher craze when 4 members of their team piloted it in a Legacy GPT in Montréal. All running the same list they came 1st, 2nd, 9th and ?th place. Ewokslayer kept the name CRET when he split in the finals at Kadis III and since then the "CRET" has stuck.



I've been thinking the idea of Street Wraith's over and I think it may not be the best idea to include them. "gasp". Here me out people:

Advantage:
-You are now in effect running a 56 card deck, maximizing your chance of comboing out in a broken fashion.

Disadvantages:
-You loose 2 life (not a biggy-99% of the time you won't give a fuck)

-What happens when you get Street Wraiths in your opening hand? (The more you have in your opening hand, the more relevent this argument becomes). Sure, you can pitch it/them to draw a card but when deciding to mulligan or to keep your opening grip, you don't know what a Wraith will effectively replace. The Wraiths then add an element of uncertainty.

If you draw a borderline 5 card hand + 2 Wraiths, do you mulligan? If you "new" the other 2 cards you might or you might not. Whatever your decision with the Wraith hand, you're taking a risk.

This is an interesting pov on Street Wraith and everyones pretty much saying that same thing. I realize there are decks this card does and doesnt belong in and the opening hand senario is the determining factor.

When you know what your going to draw, its fine. Its that simple right?
This is why you can play the card in burn easiest. Your going to draw land, or burn. If you have a hand of 5 burn, 1 land, 1 sw you should probably mulligan because you need it to be a land. If you have a hand of 2 land, 4 burn, 1 sw you keep that shit.

The same principle applies here..
1) Mana
This is obviously what he's replacing since thats the bulk of your deck.
2) Business
Wish, EtW, Belcher

So if you have an opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set. If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.
If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull.

You just need to actually try it and use common sense. Its easy to speculate a card being bad till it beats your face in. You laugh your ass off at the purple one eye'd monster till they untap and kill you with it. Shit I just leaked my secret sb tech!

BreathWeapon
06-02-2007, 06:21 PM
Why would you mull a hand with 5 mana, 1 business and a street wraith? Most people would keep a hand with just 5 mana, 1 business on the mull to 6, so that doesn't make any sense. I think you're really only obligated to mull a hand with street wraith when you don't have any business.

Kilz88
06-02-2007, 06:40 PM
Why don't you guys try wraith in dark rituals place and turn the bayou into a 2nd taiga? Its much better. Dark ritual is uneccicery and burning wish is indeed better than infernal tutor.

honz
06-03-2007, 08:07 PM
i have played around with pact of negation, infernal tutor, and plunge into darkness in burning wish's spot (with a compliment of cabal rituals). This has made it very apparent that burning wish is by far the best card for the job, and i would have it no other way. I suggest you just play a few games with the different choices, and you will understand; the only card that comes close is infernal tutor, but even that lacks the versatility that wish provides.

Speaking of wish, i was never entirely happy with the wish-board. I made some changes that i think are best for the deck. My board looks like this:
1 Empty the warrens
1 Simplify
1 Pyroclasm
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Duress
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Shattering Spree

explanation of changes:
Goblin War Strike - Cave-in was weak, at best. If you have a red card in your hand, it is probly a ritual, which will allow you to get enough mana for pyroclasm. Also, cave-in doesnt work with the common: burning wish, LED in response play. Goblin war strike offers late-game win, if your gobbos get outsized before they finish the job.

Cabal Therapy - This is very situational; however it becomes very strong post-board. You can recur this, to deal with any infest, ghostly prison..etc that you find. I think it is worth it.

also, 4 pyroblast, as they can be cast on non-blue spells to up your storm count.



Street wraith doesnt belong. If you put wraith in dark ritual's spot, then you have no need for wild cantor, and that card becomes even worse that it already is (and vice-versa). Also wraith doesnt allow you to judge your hand as well as you could without it, making you ultimately go off slower.

Deceptively powerful is a good summary of Street Wraith

Moczoc
06-03-2007, 09:15 PM
Why don't you guys try wraith in dark rituals place and turn the bayou into a 2nd taiga? Its much better. Dark ritual is uneccicery and burning wish is indeed better than infernal tutor.

Yes, that is the direction the deck has to go.
I'm testing this version for a long time now and I can say it is in fact superior to the Ritual version, simply because you don't get thost crappy Bayou-shots with Belcher. (which made me lose many games)

@bane: Witch-Maw Nephilim was my first thought, but it looks completly different oO

@honz: War strike sounds great, i'll include it for testing


here is my most recent list:



Creatures
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Wild Cantor
4 Street Wraith

Spells
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Seething Song
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish

Lands
2 Taiga


Sideboard
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify
4 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Deconstruct
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Duress

BreathWeapon
06-03-2007, 10:22 PM
Is there any reason you guys aren't using Diminishing Returns in the SB? You get to either generate 10+ storm for Empty the Warrens or switch from an Empty Warrens kill to a Goblin Charbelcher kill on demand.

Goblin War Strike is awesome tech for TES, thanks. Portal commons for the win!

laststepdown
06-03-2007, 10:24 PM
Other than LED, Wild Cantors, and Lotus Petal there's no way to get UU reliably, permanent source or not.

Kronicler
06-03-2007, 11:42 PM
@ laststepdown: That's why you play Dim. Returns in the SB where you will only Burning Wish for it, and only when you can crack an LED in response for the UU needed. It's just increased versatility.

@ BreathWeapon: You mean Scourge commons? It was in both Scourge and Portal 2.

Kronicler

Moczoc
06-04-2007, 06:53 AM
When I testet Diminishing Returns, it either got countered (what couldn't have happened to EtW) or the 7 cards I drew didn't contain a win condition and I lost the game :rolleyes:

Ewokslayer
06-04-2007, 01:54 PM
This is an interesting pov on Street Wraith and everyones pretty much saying that same thing. I realize there are decks this card does and doesnt belong in and the opening hand senario is the determining factor.

When you know what your going to draw, its fine. Its that simple right?
This is why you can play the card in burn easiest. Your going to draw land, or burn. If you have a hand of 5 burn, 1 land, 1 sw you should probably mulligan because you need it to be a land. If you have a hand of 2 land, 4 burn, 1 sw you keep that shit.

The same principle applies here..
1) Mana
This is obviously what he's replacing since thats the bulk of your deck.
2) Business
Wish, EtW, Belcher

So if you have an opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set. If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.
If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull.

You just need to actually try it and use common sense. Its easy to speculate a card being bad till it beats your face in. You laugh your ass off at the purple one eye'd monster till they untap and kill you with it. Shit I just leaked my secret sb tech!

The problem with your analysis is that most of it is wrong.
Yes Belcher is made up of two types of cards Mana and Kill (the deck has no "business spells" The deck does two things, make mana and kill).
However not all mana sources in the deck are created equal.
There are Mana Sources that go from 0 to 1
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
Mana Sources that add one Mana
3 Tinder Walls
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame (1st one)
Mana Sources that add two Mana
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
Rite of Flame (2nd)
Mana Sources that aren't really
4 Wild Cantor
4 LED
So, with that out of the way lets look at your "sample" hands

opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set.
How are you all set? Do those 4 mana cards produce 4 mana, 6, 7?
If they only produce four mana, what is the storm when that happens as 10 of your mana cards don't up the storm count. What happens to this hand if Street Wraith becomes a ETW, Burning Wish, or Belcher?

If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.
Taking a chance he'll be a mana source? WTF. I would rather take a chance that he would be a mana source by him you know actually being a mana source.

If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull. Why would you mulligan a hand that is almost always going to get you to 4,6,or 7 mana 1st turn to use your kill spell.

While I am all for testing Street Wraith in Belcher I think most people are overlooking or ignoring one very important part of playing this deck.
The only decision to make is weather to mulligan the opening hand or not. Street Wraith makes that decision harder. You are never going to keep a hand with only mana cards, a Street Wraith, and no kill card so basically you are replacing Mana in the deck so you can run Street Wraith so you can cycle Street Wraith to find the Mana that you replaced with it.
Unless you can guarantee that the cycle will find you a Mana card and that Mana card is better than the card Street Wraith is replacing I don't see Street Wraith being good in the deck.
Edit: Though it would be better savage if you could figure out a realistic way to know what Street Wraith will draw and thus use LED mana on more things.

I would either cut 4x Chrome Mox or cut 2x Desperate Ritual and 2x Wild Cantor.


It's tough to cut something in this deck, but that's what I would take out if I had to add 4x Street Wraith.
Cutting Chrome Mox seems awful.

jamest
06-04-2007, 02:25 PM
Yes, that is the direction the deck has to go.
I'm testing this version for a long time now and I can say it is in fact superior to the Ritual version, simply because you don't get thost crappy Bayou-shots with Belcher...
2 Taiga

I've also been testing RG Belcher, but why bother with two lands? You're weakening your win condition (Belcher) for the sake of 5 vs 6 lands (counting Land Grants). And it's not like you'll be drawing 2 of 5 lands by turn 2 very often.

BreathWeapon
06-04-2007, 02:51 PM
When I testet Diminishing Returns, it either got countered (what couldn't have happened to EtW) or the 7 cards I drew didn't contain a win condition and I lost the game :rolleyes:

If you wished for Diminishing Returns against control, you're a bad player, and if your opponent countered the wish target instead of countering the wish, so is he. Not drawing a win condition off of the new hand is just bad luck.

@ Street Wraith, Street Wraith is fine as long as you are counting it as a pseudo mana source, it's really not that difficult to decide on whether or not you should keep a hand with Street Wraith in it. I personally use R/g with 8 Blasts, but I could see Street Wraith and 4 Pyroblasts.

Illissius
06-04-2007, 05:22 PM
I think Street Wraith might be a bad idea. Let me explain.

Street Wraith is the top card of your library. This means that it is going to be a mana source approximately five out of six times, and a win condition one out of six. Now, your first thought is that this isn't a bad thing, because running more Belchers and Empties -- even if by just a fraction of a card -- is always nice, and you get to drop your worst mana source to draw better ones. It doesn't work this way. You are unlikely to keep any opening hand which doesn't have a win condition in it. You are going to mulligan a hand with a Wraith and no win conditions, whether or not the top card of your library is in fact one of them, becase you don't know if it is. So the only time you are going to keep a hand with Wraith in it is if you already have a win condition. In this case, you want Wraith to draw a mana source; however, approximately one in six times, it won't. Hence, Wraith should only be run if a mana source which only works five times out of six is still better than whatever you are cutting for it.

BreathWeapon
06-04-2007, 05:35 PM
I think Street Wraith might be a bad idea. Let me explain.

Street Wraith is the top card of your library. This means that it is going to be a mana source approximately five out of six times, and a win condition one out of six. Now, your first thought is that this isn't a bad thing, because running more Belchers and Empties -- even if by just a fraction of a card -- is always nice, and you get to drop your worst mana source to draw better ones. It doesn't work this way. You are unlikely to keep any opening hand which doesn't have a win condition in it. You are going to mulligan a hand with a Wraith and no win conditions, whether or not the top card of your library is in fact one of them, becase you don't know if it is. So the only time you are going to keep a hand with Wraith in it is if you already have a win condition. In this case, you want Wraith to draw a mana source; however, approximately one in six times, it won't. Hence, Wraith should only be run if a mana source which only works five times out of six is still better than whatever you are cutting for it.

That's the thing, Street Wraith isn't being cut for a business card in R/g, it's being added as a pseudo mana source when the mana sources are already maxed out. There's no reason to splash black for Dark Ritual and use Wild Cantor, when you can use Street Wraith and get a mana source that can be just as good as Dark Ritual or better than Wild Cantor.

You can always imprint it on Chrome Mox to.

Peter_Rotten
06-04-2007, 06:07 PM
I cannot, in any way, shape, or form support Street Wraith's inclusion in this deck. This is a deck in which mulliganing is VITAL - much more so than most decks. Street Wraith can only increase the difficulty of the your mulligan decision making process. Take this hand for example:

LED
Land Grant
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Chrome Mox
Elvish Spirit Guide
Street Wraith

I would be forced to mulligan this hand. You?

How about this one:

Petal
Empty the Warrens
Chrome Mox
Burning Wish
Simian Spirit Guide
Tinder Wall
Street Wraith

Do you keep this? Your decision is much easier if you knew what Street Wraith was going to cycle into, wouldn't it? And what would we be replacing Street Wraith with - probably Dark Ritual or Wild Cantor. Wouldn't either of those cards be better in the opening grip than SW?

Essentially, SW takes a 7 card hand and turns it into a 6 card hand with a mystery card. I personally don't feel like playing guessing games with this deck.

Although SW can be imprinted on Chrome Mox, I'm not so sure that I ever would do that. I would probably always cycle it to get a red or green card to imprint or simply a better card.

In Belcher, Street Wraith is a weak card that only negligibly increases your chances of getting your better cards. As of now, I see no room for Street Wraith in Belcher.

Bane of the Living
06-04-2007, 06:14 PM
The problem with your analysis is that most of it is wrong.
Yes Belcher is made up of two types of cards Mana and Kill (the deck has no "business spells" The deck does two things, make mana and kill).
However not all mana sources in the deck are created equal.
There are Mana Sources that go from 0 to 1
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
Mana Sources that add one Mana
3 Tinder Walls
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame (1st one)
Mana Sources that add two Mana
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
Rite of Flame (2nd)
Mana Sources that aren't really
4 Wild Cantor
4 LED
So, with that out of the way lets look at your "sample" hands

How are you all set? Do those 4 mana cards produce 4 mana, 6, 7?
If they only produce four mana, what is the storm when that happens as 10 of your mana cards don't up the storm count. What happens to this hand if Street Wraith becomes a ETW, Burning Wish, or Belcher?
Taking a chance he'll be a mana source? WTF. I would rather take a chance that he would be a mana source by him you know actually being a mana source.
Why would you mulligan a hand that is almost always going to get you to 4,6,or 7 mana 1st turn to use your kill spell.

While I am all for testing Street Wraith in Belcher I think most people are overlooking or ignoring one very important part of playing this deck.
The only decision to make is weather to mulligan the opening hand or not. Street Wraith makes that decision harder. You are never going to keep a hand with only mana cards, a Street Wraith, and no kill card so basically you are replacing Mana in the deck so you can run Street Wraith so you can cycle Street Wraith to find the Mana that you replaced with it.
Unless you can guarantee that the cycle will find you a Mana card and that Mana card is better than the card Street Wraith is replacing I don't see Street Wraith being good in the deck.
Edit: Though it would be better savage if you could figure out a realistic way to know what Street Wraith will draw and thus use LED mana on more things.

Cutting Chrome Mox seems awful.

Ok we both agree there are two card types in the deck. You call them "kill" I call them "business". I use Burning Wish for much more than killing so I dont like calling it a kill. Everything in the deck makes mana except for these cards that do some effin business.

4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw seems fine to me based on this principle;
I want 2 business spells in my opening seven. I dont like relying on my one belcher w/ seven mana in hand against an unknown opponent. That opponent might have FoW. Some of the non belcher cards might not be land grant. This changes if the 1 business spell is EtW as long as your opponent cant stuff you with FoW again by hitting the Seething Song that makes 4 mana ect.

So with that hand your gonna assume sw will turn into mana. I think seeing as to how there are only 9 more business spells to draw in 53 cards gives us a great chance. If your really banking the game on needing Seething Song or another +2 mana maker then you might want to consider a mull but if you just need to wait a turn or two more to draw phase into the mana the stability of 2 business spells in your opening hand will probably pay off.

Its really not a joke that you can cast his ass either.

The big freakout about him in your opening hand would be less significant if you only decided to play 3 of them.


and if your opponent countered the wish target instead of countering the wish, so is he.

Not drawing a win condition off of the new hand is just bad luck.


Why the hell would you say that if the obvious senerio leaves the player with 4 mana when burning wish is on the stack? Your obviously gonna play Empty the Warrens and it has storm. Im glad Im not a retard and would know enough to counter the wish..

Not drawing a win condition off the top 7 happens when your only playing 11 business spells and you remove the top 10 from the game..



LED
Land Grant
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Chrome Mox
Elvish Spirit Guide
Street Wraith

I would be forced to mulligan this hand. You?

How about this one:

Petal
Empty the Warrens
Chrome Mox
Burning Wish
Simian Spirit Guide
Tinder Wall
Street Wraith

Do you keep this?

Hand 1 I would mulligan obviously just like in the example I gave. If you took out a mana producer you'd mull that hand anyways. If that Street Wraith was Wild Cantor you would've pitched it too.

The second hand I would keep. You have 4 mana even without cycling yet. That gives you 4 storm on EtW. If Street Wraith becomes mana which it probably will, your in even better shape. You lead by cycling him obviously, if he draws into business rather than mana you simply imprint the 3rd business spell on chrome mox and win.

If your too stoned or hung over to make the right play with that you can always imprint it on the Chrome Mox..

revenge_inc
06-04-2007, 06:22 PM
I've been thinking the idea of Street Wraith's over and I think it may not be the best idea to include them. "gasp".

While I am all for testing Street Wraith in Belcher I think most people are overlooking or ignoring one very important part of playing this deck.
The only decision to make is weather to mulligan the opening hand or not. Street Wraith makes that decision harder....


I think Street Wraith might be a bad idea. Let me explain...

I cannot, in any way, shape, or form support Street Wraith's inclusion in this deck. This is a deck in which mulliganing is VITAL - much more so than most decks. Street Wraith can only increase the difficulty of the your mulligan decision making process.

Three other people came to the same conclusion as I posted ealier, including Ewokslayer, who has won with the deck. I'm convinced, Street Wraith does not deserve a place.

BreathWeapon
06-04-2007, 06:48 PM
@Peter,

The first hand is a mulligan regardless of the card that Street Wraith replace, so that's not an argument against Street Wraith as far as I'm concerned. If you were on the draw, drawing your 8th card and then cycling Street Wraith for the 9th card is at least a possibility for you to consider before you mull it.

That second hand is a good hand with/with out Street Wraith.

@Bane

I have absolutely no idea why you're taking offense to a remark that wasn't directed at you, but he said he Burning Wished for Diminishing Returns, and the Diminishing Returns was countered, which means he's a bad player for wishing for Diminishing Returns, and the opponent is a bad player for not countering the Burning Wish and mana burning him for four. Obviously it isn't obvious if some one went thru' this series of plays in a game and thinks it's a counter argument for Diminishing Returns.

Removing 10 cards from the deck is statistically irrelevant, and not drawing a 1 of 11 win conditions in 7 cards is bad luck when you average 2 win conditions per hand. We've all had D7 hands flop, but so what? That's the risk of alternating win conditions, generating additional mana, generating additional storm and getting a second land drop. There's absolutely no reason not to use the card.

@ In general,

Street Wraith is a great card in this deck, people shouldn't shy away from complicating their mulligans, because their not difficult to begin with and mulliganing is the only actual skill you use in this deck. I've been using Street Wraith and Serum Powder in R/g Belcher for awhile, and both of them are fine as long as you know how to mulligan.

Peter_Rotten
06-04-2007, 06:56 PM
Street Wraith is a great card in this deck, people shouldn't shy away from complicating their mulligans, because their not difficult to begin with and mulliganing is the only actual skill you use in this deck. I've been using Street Wraith and Serum Powder in R/g Belcher for awhile, and both of them are fine as long as you know how to mulligan.

To better understand your opinion here, I need to know what cards you replaced for SW. Next, could you provide some sample hands in which you believe SW to be good card. Maybe I can be convinced with some specific examples.

Bane of the Living
06-04-2007, 07:07 PM
Bane

I have absolutely no idea why you're taking offense to a remark that wasn't directed at you, but he said he Burning Wished for Diminishing Returns, and the Diminishing Returns was countered, which means he's a bad player for wishing for Diminishing Returns, and the opponent is a bad player for not countering the Burning Wish and mana burning him for four. Obviously it isn't obvious if some one went thru' this series of plays in a game and thinks it's a counter argument for Diminishing Returns.


and if your opponent countered the wish target instead of countering the wish, so is he.

I misunderstood you. I read this as though you meant countering the product of the wish was the right play. I wasnt offended but disregard it anyways.

Peter you already gave the perfect example of a SW hand. What Id replace from the list are the Wild Cantors and Dark Rituals, opening 4 more slots for maindeck Xantids or other meta spots.

Peter_Rotten
06-04-2007, 07:11 PM
But I can't think of a opening hand where I'd be happy to have SW. Can you? Please show me a few if you can.

Ewokslayer
06-04-2007, 07:14 PM
There's no reason to splash black for Dark Ritual and use Wild Cantor, when you can use Street Wraith and get a mana source that can be just as good as Dark Ritual or better than Wild Cantor.

You can always imprint it on Chrome Mox to.

Just as good as Dark Ritual isn't going to happen as there is exactly one other card that nets you 2 mana and that one costs 3 to cast (Seething Song)

Any colored card can be imprinted on Chrome Mox so I am not impressed.



4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw seems fine to me based on this principle;
I want 2 business spells in my opening seven. I dont like relying on my one belcher w/ seven mana in hand against an unknown opponent. That opponent might have FoW. Some of the non belcher cards might not be land grant. This changes if the 1 business spell is EtW as long as your opponent cant stuff you with FoW again by hitting the Seething Song that makes 4 mana ect.

So with that hand your gonna assume sw will turn into mana. I think seeing as to how there are only 9 more business spells to draw in 53 cards gives us a great chance. If your really banking the game on needing Seething Song or another +2 mana maker then you might want to consider a mull but if you just need to wait a turn or two more to draw phase into the mana the stability of 2 business spells in your opening hand will probably pay off.
2 bs in your deck leaves a 17% chance of the top card being a bs, not so good odds. Chrome Mox off the top isn't always so hot, neither is Tinder Wall depending on the remaining mana.


Its really not a joke that you can cast his ass either.
Double Black off of 4 sources isn't a joke?

Though really I don't think the arguement should be is Street Wraith good?
It should be is Dark Ritual worth running in the deck at the expense of having to run 4 Wild Cantors and 1 bayou?
If you are answering Yes to that question there is no room for Street Wraith except maybe replacing Desperate Ritual.
If you are answering No then you have 9 slots to fill (1 Bayou, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Wild Cantors) 1 of those slots goes to Tinder Wall and then you have nothing left to put in those slots because Red and Green has no other mana acceleration that fits in the deck.
A point for Wild Cantor beside making Dark Ritual playable is that it does make it easier to cast Tinder Wall.

BreathWeapon
06-04-2007, 09:38 PM
@Peter,

You have to approach Serum Powder and Street Wraith from the following angles. First, If the win conditions and the mana in R/g = Max, then R/g Belcher has 8 slots left to fill. These are the same slots CRET Belcher uses on Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor, but the problem with Dark Ritual is that it requires Land Grant, Bayou, Lotus Petal or Wild Cantor in order to serve as a mana source, and Wild Cantor is an unnecessary mana fixer with out Dark Ritual. While Dark Ritual is a 2x mana source, Wild Cantor is a 0x mana source, so you're netting a total of 4 more 1x mana sources, and if you're only netting a total of 4 more 1x mana sources, then you may as well just use Street Wraith, which is a mana source 75 percent of the time, and prevent the Bayou from causing failed Belcher activations. Second, in R/g Belcher, you can either choose to fill these 8 slots with disruption, Swarms, Welders, Blasts etc, or additional threats in Living Wish and Storm Entity. Assuming that neither of those options are desirable, you can treat those 8 slots as "null space" with Serum Powder and Street Wraith.

Serum Powder and Street Wraith are equal to card X, for the purpose of this argument card X is Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast, or rather a card that doesn't generate mana or a threat. Now, when you draw Serum Powder or Street Wraith, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not that hand would have been playable/better if either of those cards were card X, and in goldfish mode the answer is no.

Then the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the hand is playable with just those six cards. With Serum Powder, if the answer is yes, then you can accept the dead card and play your hand. If the answer is no, or you can't afford a dead card against control, then you RFG the hand, you reduce the deck size by one by RFGing the Serum Powder, and the other RFG cards are being RFGed at an equal ratio, so RFGing them from the deck doesn't really matter. You're effectively getting a free mulligan to six, and if you don't like it, you can thin your deck and go to seven. With Street Wraith, if the answer is yes, then you just cycle the Street Wraith and get a six card hand with a free draw.

The only really complicated thing about Serum Powder and Street Wraith is trying to keep a marginal hand wither either one in the hopes that you'll draw what you need between being on the draw and cycling. I've seen people either get really lucky or really unlucky doing this, but if you know the math and you don't want to mulligan, you can go for it. Usually, I don't take my draw step into consideration when I'm mulliganing, and as long as you don't either, you probably wont get pissed off at Serum Powder or Street Wraith instead of blaming yourself for taking a risk.

Here is the list I use,

4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish
4 Serum Powder
4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Right of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tinder Wall
4 Simain Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga

Instead of me giving specific examples of "six card hands", you should shuffle that list on MWS and then goldfish it for awhile. Every time you draw a Serum Powder or a Street Wraith, keep a specific card in mind, card X, where card X doesn't produce mana or a threat, and you'll see that despite "complicating the mulligan" that once you've mastered your mulliganing skills, those two cards are invaluable to the deck's consistency.

@ Ewokslayer,

Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor are a pair, and the average mana production is one, so if you Street Wraith into another mana source, that mana source should be just as good if not better on average. Picking up the second Rite of Flame, Seething Song or a Lion's Eye Diamond is usually a huge play.

honz
06-04-2007, 11:46 PM
i'm suprised someone hasn'y mentioned this, so i took it upon myself to point this out.

Using street wraith AND serum powder in the same deck is just stupid (no offence, to anyone). The whole problem with wraith, is that it might draw you into some use-less dead card; thereby completely screwing your hand. By adding in 4 serum powders, you are greatly increasing the chance of that wraith drawing dead.

with that said, serum powder does not belong here (again, no offence). I have been told (i think this is true), that with the 11 win-cons in this deck, you have a 78% chance of drawing one or more on your first hand. That translates to, you will rarely mull more than once. Serum is best suited for aggresive mull strategy, like when your only running 4 win-cons (looking at you, flucuator).

If you insist on running wraith (which i would advise against), there are many better options for the wild cantor spot. For one, xantid swarm is one decent option. Pyroblast is another nice option for you; at worst it will pump your storm count. Perhaps the best option, is leaving 3 cantors in the deck, and adding the fourth tinder wall.


What is the general opinion on Xantid Swarm versus Pyroblast? i have always run pyroblasts (SB), but perhaps xantid merits looking into.

Also, how has deconstruct been working out?, seems like it would have its uses. however, i run black for dark rituals, so green is often hard to find...

BreathWeapon
06-05-2007, 01:38 AM
i'm suprised someone hasn'y mentioned this, so i took it upon myself to point this out.

Using street wraith AND serum powder in the same deck is just stupid (no offence, to anyone). The whole problem with wraith, is that it might draw you into some use-less dead card; thereby completely screwing your hand. By adding in 4 serum powders, you are greatly increasing the chance of that wraith drawing dead.

with that said, serum powder does not belong here (again, no offence). I have been told (i think this is true), that with the 11 win-cons in this deck, you have a 78% chance of drawing one or more on your first hand. That translates to, you will rarely mull more than once. Serum is best suited for aggresive mull strategy, like when your only running 4 win-cons (looking at you, flucuator).

If you insist on running wraith (which i would advise against), there are many better options for the wild cantor spot. For one, xantid swarm is one decent option. Pyroblast is another nice option for you; at worst it will pump your storm count. Perhaps the best option, is leaving 3 cantors in the deck, and adding the fourth tinder wall.


What is the general opinion on Xantid Swarm versus Pyroblast? i have always run pyroblasts (SB), but perhaps xantid merits looking into.

Also, how has deconstruct been working out?, seems like it would have its uses. however, i run black for dark rituals, so green is often hard to find...

Serum Powder should be the first card in any deck where the deck's objective is to find a single card and resolve it. It's not about whether or not you can't find that single card or not, but whether or not you can find the right hand with that single card in it. Serum Powder is virtual card advantage when you don't draw a win condition, 1/5 of the time is actually a lot in a tournament, and it's virtual card advantage when you draw too many win conditions. It's card quality when you're gaining free six card hands to choose from, and it's card quality when you Serum Powder the hand, because you're removing null space from the deck, the Serum Powder, and you're removing the rest of the cards at an equal ratio.

Statements like "The problem with Street Wraith is that it could draw a dead card and make an entire hand useless" are ignorant, no offense, because if you can't distinguish between a six card hand you need to mulligan and a six card hand you can keep, with a free draw from Street Wraith, you don't have the necessary mulliganing skills to play this deck at all. Street Wraith into Serum Powder is unfortunate, but it's not the end of the world, and it happens less than 1/13 of the time, which is less than the number of times you'll draw a hand with out a win condition and with a Serum Powder, the number of times you'll draw three wind conditions and a Serum Power and the number of times you'll draw a bad six card hand with Serum Powder as the seventh card etc.

The best argument against Serum Powder is that drawing into Serum Powder results in a dead card, and while that's true, Belcher doesn't care about what cards it draws, it cares about what cards it starts with. In that light, Serum Powder has no significant draw back, because the marginal utility of the Serum Powder mulligans is significantly higher than the costs of drawing a dead card.

Edit: Wild Cantor is worse than awful, he's terrible, unless you're casting him to enable Dark Ritual, you're losing one card from your hand, and despite generating storm, I bet that the Street Wraith would have resulted in a better hand or Serum Powder would have given you the option to "mulligan to seven."

Machinus
06-05-2007, 02:03 AM
Quick question.

Your deck is 49 mana sources, 11 win conditions. Four of the win conditions are not storm-based, and lose to permission.

Have you ever tested Goblin Welder in the sideboard? I imagine your worst matchups are naturally those in which permission plays a role. You are running 12 0cc artifacts to support welding in the Belcher to get around this. Best of all it costs R.

Just wondering if this is good at all.

BreathWeapon
06-05-2007, 03:05 AM
Quick question.

Your deck is 49 mana sources, 11 win conditions. Four of the win conditions are not storm-based, and lose to permission.

Have you ever tested Goblin Welder in the sideboard? I imagine your worst matchups are naturally those in which permission plays a role. You are running 12 0cc artifacts to support welding in the Belcher to get around this. Best of all it costs R.

Just wondering if this is good at all.

It's not bad, but the problem is that the opponent is going to counter the mana sources more often than he's going to counter the win conditions, so even if you have a Goblin Welder, there's no guarantee that he'll prevent the opponent from keeping Belcher off of the board, and Red/Pyro Blast and Xantid Swarm can protect your acceleration, and Xantid Swarm can protect your Tutor + LED.

Moczoc
06-05-2007, 07:45 AM
My personal reason to use Street Wraith instead of Dark Ritual was just that I hate Bayou in the Deck and Rit. isn't playable without it.
Wild Cantor is NOT that bad. If you hold a belcher and a Landgrant/Land it produces 1 mana (in turn 2) for the kill.

Ewokslayer
06-05-2007, 08:32 AM
It's card quality when you're gaining free six card hands to choose from, and it's card quality when you Serum Powder the hand, because you're removing null space from the deck, the Serum Powder, and you're removing the rest of the cards at an equal ratio.

Equal ratio?
How so?
If you mulligan a 7 card hand with 6 mana cards and 1 Serum Powder your 53 card deck is no longer in an equal ratio of
41 Mana : 11 Kill : 8 crap to
35 Mana : 11 Kill : 7 crap
Thus you chance of your next 7 card hand containing too much kill and crap and not enough mana.

or even worse if your 7 card hand is 3 Kill, 3 mana and Serum Powder.
Mulliganing that only gives you 8 Kill left in the deck.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-05-2007, 08:51 AM
Also, your hand is more likely to be a forced mulligan if you play Serum Powder since Serum Powder is itself a dead card in your hand. Most of the time you're going to wish it was more mana, since that's actually what you need. I can't imagine when having to lose a card on the mulligan is worse than running a playset of terrible cards.

@Breathweapon: The fairly obvious flaw in your reasoning is that Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor do produce mana. Pretending they don't won't change the function of the cards.

BreathWeapon
06-05-2007, 03:07 PM
Also, your hand is more likely to be a forced mulligan if you play Serum Powder since Serum Powder is itself a dead card in your hand. Most of the time you're going to wish it was more mana, since that's actually what you need. I can't imagine when having to lose a card on the mulligan is worse than running a playset of terrible cards.

@Breathweapon: The fairly obvious flaw in your reasoning is that Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor do produce mana. Pretending they don't won't change the function of the cards.

That's true if and only if Serum Powder is replacing a mana source, and in R/g Belcher, it's not replacing a mana source. In fact, Serum Powder isn't replacing a single card that improves the goldfish of the deck in any situation, so it's essentially giving you a free six card hand to consider every time you draw it.

I never stated that Dark Ritual doesn't produce mana, I stated that Wild Cantor doesn't produce mana, and it doesn't produce mana until the second turn, at which point you sacrificed one mana to cast it and you are recouping the mana, where the chances are if you had just saved that one mana, you could have top decked into the mana to go off and win any way, or you could have Street Wraithed for the mana and won.

The problem is that using Dark Ritual just isn't worth using Wild Cantor and Bayou, and if you remove those cards and play R/g, you don't have cards that generate mana to replace them. So, instead, you just treat those 8 slots as "null space" and you actually end up with a more consistent and flexible deck.

@Ewokslayer, over time, it averages out. You can use specific examples all you want, but if you use a large enough sample size, you'll see what I mean. Even if the rate of RFG isn't perfectly linear, that's not necessarily a bad thing, and you can always choose to mulligan the hand instead of using Serum Powder, because sometimes you'll get SP, ETW, ETW, ETW, crap, crap, crap, and you'd rather not remove all of your ETW from the deck etc. The funny thing is, if SP were a Pyroblast there etc., it still wouldn't have made any difference, so at the very least Serum Powder is giving you another option to consider.

Usually, in situations where you have a heterogenous hand, like let's say Serum Powder, Goblin Charbelcher, Burning Wish, Seething Song, Lion's Eye Diamond, Tinder Wall, Elvish Spirit Guide and you still can't go off, you'll be RFGing those card at an equal ratio. It's not just a case of RFGing an all mana or a triple threat hand, but RFGing a balanced hand that just doesn't work.

Serum Powder is a great card in here. I don't think I could play Belcher with out it, and I've been playing Belcher for awhile.

freakish777
06-05-2007, 04:34 PM
I want 2 business spells in my opening seven. I dont like relying on my one belcher w/ seven mana in hand against an unknown opponent. That opponent might have FoW.

You shouldn't be playing this deck then (or combo for that matter).

If 1 Belcher + 6 mana sources (which produce 7 mana) isn't good enough for you against an unknown opponent then no combo deck ever will be.

Let's take the GAGG, TML2 (both days), and KadiIII Top 8's as expected numbers:

1 Goblins/black*
3 Enchantress
1 WUB Angel Stompy*
1 Molotov Cocktail
2 Red Death*
2 Goblins/white
3 Goblins/green
1 43 Lands
1 UB Landstill*
2 Aluren*
1 Faerie Stompy*
1 TES*
1 UBG Pyschatog*
2 RGbSA*
1 CRET Belcher*
1 UWB Landstill*
1 Reanimator (Polar Express)*
1 RGbw Survival*
1 RWb Aggro
1 RWbg Aggro*
2 Red Thresh*
1 White Thresh*
1 4c Thresh*

All the asterisks are decks that can potentially disrupt the 6 mana + 1 Belcher hand (or 1 EtW/Wish hand if they've got a read on you having EtW or you have to play a vital Seething Song that they can just counter to leave you with less than 4 mana and 1 card left in hand) depending on who's on the play.

If you're on the play, we go down to the following decks:

2 Red Thresh
1 White Thresh
1 4c Thresh
1 UWB Landstill
1 Reanimator (Polar Express)
1 UBG Pyschatog
1 UB Landstill
2 Aluren
1 Faerie Stompy

Which is 11 out of 32. 11/32 * 39.9499626% (percentage of the time they have Force in their opening 7, doesn't include chances they'll have a blue card which pushes that number down, also doesn't include mulliganning, which pushes chances they have it up, we'll assume these two factors cancel out) = 13.73279964375% of the time on the play that that hand is good. Mulliganning that hand is almost always a mistake.

On the draw, assuming your opponent has scouted you, knows to lead with disruption, AND has an amazing read and knows what to name with Therapy, to make up for this, I'm not including Stifle, since Stifling a Belcher activation is weak anyways:

X/32 decks Y%
1 Goblins/black (3 Therapy + 12 black lands, about 32%)
1 WUB Angel Stompy (4 Duress + 13 black sources, about 32%)
2 Red Death (4 Duress, 4 Hymn + 4 Rit, >40%)
1 UB Landstill (4 FoW, 39.9499626%, Duress in the board)
2 Aluren (3 Therapy + 12 black lands, 4 Force, about 56% I think)
1 Faerie Stompy (4 FoW, 39.9499626%)
1 TES (has the nuts, kills you turn 1, let's say 10% of the time)
1 UBG Pyschatog (4 FoW, 39.9499626%, Duress in the board)
2 RGbSA (4 Duress + 10 black sources, 3 Therapy + 10 black sources, about 43%)
1 CRET Belcher (has the nuts, kills you turn 1, let's say 10% of the time, although I think it's actually less than this)
1 UWB Landstill (4 FoW, 39.9499626%, Duress in the board)
1 Reanimator/Polar Express (4 Duress + 18 black sources, 4 FoW, about 62% I think)
1 RGbw Survival (3 Therapy + 9 black sources, about 21%)
1 RWbg Aggro (3 Therapy + 12 black sources, about 24%)
2 Red Thresh (4 FoW, 39.9499626%)
1 White Thresh (4 FoW, 39.9499626%)
1 4c Thresh (4 FoW, 39.9499626%)

So for each of these we do X/32 * Y% and sum them up, we get (I think) about 24%.

So greater than 86% of the time on the play you win with that hand (against the field) and about 76% of the time on the draw you win with that hand (against the field). Again, if those percentages aren't good enough for you against and unknown opponent, likely no combo deck will be (the percentage of decks running FoW in Legacy is small in comparison to the number of decks you straight up goldfish).


EDIT: Those numbers also don't include your Belcher activation hitting a Bayou in the top 20, or a Taiga in the top 10. If someone knows the statistics off-hand of your first turn Belcher activation with 2 lands in the deck fizzling, let me know. You just multiple the lethal Belcher activation percentage with the 86% on the play and 76% on the draw to get the more legitimate numbers.

Alfred
06-06-2007, 02:29 AM
Serum Powder is at it's best when it's drawing you into an early game bomb that isn't very reliant on other cards in your hand, i.e. Workshop. Workshop loved this fucking card because the entire deck revolved around IT, and it needed pretty much no other cards to make it work. The rest of the deck was just stuff that you could cast with Workshop, so the chances of getting screwed by Powder were very low.

CRET Belcher isn't like that, because drawing a Belcher or Warrens isn't a guarantee that you're going to win. They're reliant on the other cards in your hand to get them to work, and drawing a Serum Powder instead of those cards is a real kick in the nuts.

That said, it might be better than I'm thinking. It really comes down to what works in testing and what doesn't. Theoretically I'm leaning towards it not working.

AngryTroll
06-06-2007, 02:38 AM
I would be interested in seeing more of a discussion of sideboarding techniques for different matchups. In the tournament report, the most common sideboarding was -2 Wild Cantor, -1 Dark Ritual for +3 Shattering Spree, against Pithing Needle and Chalice, I assume.

How do you board against Threshold or Meathooks, that might have Pithing Needle in addition to Daze and Force of Will? Do you bring in the 5 Blasts, and leave the Shattering Sprees for Wish targets? "Some combination of Land Grant, Wild Cantor, and Dark Ritual" leaves a lot of room for improper sideboarding in a matchup that is already going to be difficult.

laststepdown
06-06-2007, 03:34 AM
Also, Street Wraith is horrible because it will never up the storm count.

I haven't even liked it as a Dredge enabler, honestly. Reliability on free cycling is relying on dead draws, IMHO. I dunno, it's late.

honz
06-06-2007, 01:28 PM
@Breathweapon: in the relatively short testing i have done with your list (near the top of page 4), i have been rather un-impressed. Almost every hand with a serum powder is a hand that you mull. One major problem i have been having, is that serum removes that hand from the game. Too often i end up drawing hands with 3+ win-cons and a serum; in which i am forced to remove them from the game. I then have a very hard time drawing into a half-decent hand with a win-con. Also, i often end up removing my land from the game, only to draw into a few land grants.

Also, the sheer number of times i cycle wraith into a dead card is amazing. Assuming you have a decent hand (1 win-con, 4-5 mana, 1 wraith), the number of cards you could draw dead on is amazing. Between drawing powders, extra win-cons, dead moxes, dead land grants, uncastable tinder walls, or useless LEDs. Its just not worth it IMHO.


I would also like to hear what other people do as far as SBing. My method is best described as:
in: shattering sprees, or pyroblasts (as needed)
Out: combination of cantors, land grants, and dark rituals.

however, i have yet to try out xantid swarms, and I am wondering how good they really are here.

BreathWeapon
06-06-2007, 02:15 PM
@Breathweapon: in the relatively short testing i have done with your list (near the top of page 4), i have been rather un-impressed. Almost every hand with a serum powder is a hand that you mull. One major problem i have been having, is that serum removes that hand from the game. Too often i end up drawing hands with 3+ win-cons and a serum; in which i am forced to remove them from the game. I then have a very hard time drawing into a half-decent hand with a win-con. Also, i often end up removing my land from the game, only to draw into a few land grants.

Also, the sheer number of times i cycle wraith into a dead card is amazing. Assuming you have a decent hand (1 win-con, 4-5 mana, 1 wraith), the number of cards you could draw dead on is amazing. Between drawing powders, extra win-cons, dead moxes, dead land grants, uncastable tinder walls, or useless LEDs. Its just not worth it IMHO.


I would also like to hear what other people do as far as SBing. My method is best described as:
in: shattering sprees, or pyroblasts (as needed)
Out: combination of cantors, land grants, and dark rituals.

however, i have yet to try out xantid swarms, and I am wondering how good they really are here.

Serum Powder causes every hand you drew to be a Serum Powder mulligan any way? So every six card hand you draw after a mulligan is worthless? It's just not statistically possible. I have 500+ MWS logs of goldfishing with Serum Powder and Street Wraith, and if you are finding Serum Powder and Street Wraith sub optimal, it's either because your sample size is too low or you don't know how to mulligan. Serum Powdering with a Taiga in hand is a definite mistake, you can mulligan any hand with Serum Powder in it.

A second Land Grant is never dead, it either protects the first Land Grant from a counter spell or it increases the storm for Empty the Warrens, it's similar for Chrome Mox and Lion's Eye Diamond (and if you have Burning Wish you can go for Diminishing Returns), and I have never seen a dead Chrome Mox or Tinder Wall in my life. If you can't use the Chrome Mox to imprint another spell and turn it into a permanent mana source, and if you don't have a green mana source or a Chrome Mox out of 17 cards in the deck, you need to reconsider the hands you are keeping.

@Laststepdown, Street Wraith doesn't have to generate storm as long as the card it cycles into generates storm, and that's pretty much 75 percent of the deck. You should never be relying on Street Wraith to save your hand, you just hope Street Wraith makes your hand better.

@Alfred, I actually think Belcher is exactly like that, because you find one card you need, and then you count on the rest of the cards in your hand to facilitate that card. It's really the same difference with Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad, but the appearance of the Mishra's Worshop or the Bazaar of Baghdad facilitating the other cards is just an illusion, because with out the other cards, the card you Serum Powdered for would be useless.

@ In general,

WTF at SBing out Land Grant?

laststepdown
06-06-2007, 05:03 PM
@Laststepdown, Street Wraith doesn't have to generate storm as long as the card it cycles into generates storm, and that's pretty much 75 percent of the deck. You should never be relying on Street Wraith to save your hand, you just hope Street Wraith makes your hand better.

I guess that's the difference. Your build of Belcher 'hopes' it has a good hand, while CRET belcher knows indefinitely. I recommend starting a new thread and leaving this one pure. I'm just saying.

Bane of the Living
06-06-2007, 05:55 PM
I guess that's the difference. Your build of Belcher 'hopes' it has a good hand, while CRET belcher knows indefinitely. I recommend starting a new thread and leaving this one pure. I'm just saying.

Thats like saying CRET belcher doesnt have room for innovation or development. Too bad CRET belcher is a an innovation of old belcher lists. Whats the point in spamming up the source with 2 different belcher decks when only one will eventually be superior? Its not like we're discussing CRET vs Severence Belcer.

I havent played any games with the powder/sw version but Ive played quite a few with Wild Cantor and he sucks sucks sucks.

Also leaving in Bayou kinda creates the whole "Spoils of the Vault ftl" feeling when you flip it after activating belcher. This deck shouldnt lose to itself.

If we were to focus on just r/g belcher without adding the null space cards, what else could we add? Would welder make its way in the cantors spot? Ive wished it was the goblin so much.

Peter_Rotten
06-06-2007, 06:21 PM
Although Wild Cantor is far from an amazing card, I think that he serves an useful role. Besides the Ritual mana fix, he helps increase mana the next turn when played off of a land. We discussed his benefits extensively, so I think it is hardly fair to say he "sucks sucks sucks." If I was forced to remove him, I might consider BoP over Welder.

The problem here is that we have about 7 cards (combination of Cantors and Dark Rituals) that are of somewhat weaker value than other cards in the deck. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any cards suggested that are better than those 7.

kicks_422
06-06-2007, 06:34 PM
however, i have yet to try out xantid swarms, and I am wondering how good they really are here.

You know a card is good when aggro-control starts digging for StP against a combo deck.

That said, I think it pretty much deserves SB slots in Belcher, probably even MD. I refuse to play combo with no less than 4 Swarms and 4 Duress MD, but that's just me.

BreathWeapon
06-06-2007, 06:56 PM
I think you'd either add Xantid Swarms and Living Wishes or a full set of Blasts, so you can fight against control's counter wall and mulligan less for a win condition or play on the stack. I think the full set of Blasts is more of a SB plan tho', because you usually want to SB out Burning Wish, SB in the Empty the Warrens, and then cut the Seething Songs, because, 3 mana is the choke point at which a control player will counter your mana source to stop you from using an SG to reach 4, and the full set of blasts can't protect your Seething Song or your Burning Wish + LED plays (you can only really do this with Serum Powder tho').

I think people who keep dissing Serum Powder and Street Wraith have no clue what they're actually talking about. CRET Belcher mulligans to six cards and five cards like it was it's job. You're just getting more free mulligans out of Serum Powder and less bad belcher activations from Street Wraith instead of the Dark Ritual, Wild Cantor and Bayou package. Any one can pilot 11 win conditions and 49 mana sources and win games, but it actually takes some skill to learn how to mulligan with Serum Powder and Street Wraith.

@Peter, nothing about Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor is strong to begin with, people just use them because CRET Belcher put up results and no one questioned it other than people who already played Belcher before CRET Belcher. I think Serum Powder and Street Wraith are objectively more powerful cards as far as consistency is concerned, and even I think the old R/g Living Wish and Xantid Swarm package was better than CRET Belcher. Just adding any form of disruption in those slots could be objectively better tho', and I think that it actually is, because if you look at CRET Belcher's SBing it's always Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor out and disruption in against any deck that doesn't die to the goldfish.

TheMightyQuinn
06-06-2007, 10:32 PM
Any one can pilot 11 win conditions and 49 mana sources and win games, but it actually takes some skill to learn how to mulligan with Serum Powder and Street Wraith.
If it already wins in the "11 wincon, 49 mana" configuration (like you just said it does) why should we complicate things further by making mulligans more "skill intensive"?

BreathWeapon
06-06-2007, 11:36 PM
If it already wins in the "11 wincon, 49 mana" configuration (like you just said it does) why should we complicate things further by making mulligans more "skill intensive"?

Because if you're worried about making Belcher more skill intensive, when that skill intensiveness improves the deck's card advantage, card quality and consistency, then you shouldn't be playing MTG at all. Saying, if it's not broke, don't fix it, is like saying we should stop short of optimizing anything and accept it as the best. There's nothing worse than that in a card game, because you should always be re-evaluating your position from square one just to constantly evolve, get better and stay ahead of the curve. It's the people who incessantly tinker with everything over and over again that find all of the cool tech, make all of the insane plays and it always pays off for them in the end. Are you a Spike, or are you just a lazy Johnny?

Peter_Rotten
06-07-2007, 08:43 PM
In the interest of fairness, I figured I'd post some sample opening hands with Street Wraith and ask this question: Does SW increase your goldfish turn and/or consistency?

Deck:
Standard build listed on the 1st page with the following modifications: 4 Tinder Walls, 3 Dark Rituals.
Physical Deck (not MWS or Apprentice - not sure if this really matters to anyone)

Methods:
Playing vs. Non Disruptive Goldfish
Playing first
Attempting to Belch ASAP or
Attempting to put out as many tokens as possible ASAP
I accepted only 7 card opening hands with Wild Cantors.
I analyzed those hands and then pretended that the Cantors were Wraiths
I recorded all cards cycled into from SW
I ignored all Dark Ritual cards (I didn't want to take Serum Powder/Dark Ritual into this analysis)
For the sake of space and sanity, I have used a massive amount of abbreviations; please ask if you are not sure what my abbreviations stands for.
Cantor and Street Wraith is listed as follows: Cantor/SW --> Cycled Card
Black hands were not significantly improved by SW cycle
Red hands were worsened by SW cycle
Blue hands were significantly improved by SW cycle





Hand 1
Cantor/SWraith --> TinderWall
Bwish
ESG
Belcher
LGrant
Petal
TWall

1st turn Belcher; no activation either way


Hand 2
TWall
DespRitual
LED
SSG
ESG
BWish
Cantor/SWraith --> LED

Cantor gives 13 1/1s; SW gives 12 1/1s. I don't consider this a case of SW significantly worsening the hand or opening turn.


Hand 3
Cantor/SW --> Cantor/SW --> Seething Song
Cantor/SW --> BWish
Petal
LED
ETW
SSG
DespRitual

Cantor has no worthy turn one play. If you keep the SW hand, it gives you 12 tokens at the cost of 8 life or 10 tokens at the cost of 7 life. Risky, but I'd take it.


Hand 4
ETW
Twall
Cantor/SW --> ESG
SSong
SSG
Belcher
LED

I'd likely keep either hand. Cantor gives you a turn 2 Belcher activation; SW gives you a turn 1 or the option of making 8 tokens.


Hand 5
Mox
Cantor/SW --> Taiga (this is an interesting issue)
Cantor/SW --> ESG
ESG
ESG
BWish
LGrant

Either build makes tokens on turn 2, but Cantor increases the storm. Do you keep a double SW hand? That's a lot of information you are lacking.


Hand 6
SSG
Cantor/SW --> SSG
LED
LED
Belcher
LGrant
Rite

Cantor allows for a turn 2 Belcher activation. SW turn one.


Hand 7
Rite
SSong
Cantor/SW --> Rite
LED
Twall
DespRit
Mox

Mulligan for either build.


Hand 8
Cantor/SW --> LGrant
Cantor/SW --> DespRit
LED
ETW
ETW
SSong
BWish

Mulligan for the Cantor build. Would SW proponents mulligan this also? I would assume so.


Hand 9
Cantor/SW --> Cantor/SW --> SSong
Cantor/SW --> SSong
ETW
Belch
Mox
Mox
Twall

Cantor hand is keepable but not great and would likely aim for turn 2 Belcher, turn 3 activation. SW hand becomes horrible if kept.


Hand 10
Belcher
Belcher
Bwish
Bwish
Cantor/SW --> Twall
DespRit
ETW

LOLcakes. I don't care if SW cycles into Black Lotus, this hand may officially be the dumbest Belcher hand ever.


Hand 11
LGrant
SSG
ESG
Mox
Bwish
Cantor/SW --> SSG
ETW

Cantor makes 8 tokens. SW makes 6. I assume SW proponents would keep this hand.


Hand 12
Cantor/SW --> LGrant
Bwish
Petal
SSG
ETW
ETW
Twall

Cantor gets a likely mulligan. SW allows 8 tokens turn 1, but would you keep the SW hand? There were 11 cards you would like to see (4 Land Grants, 3 Petals or 4 Moxes)


Hand 13
Bwish
Twall
Cantor/SW --> Twall
Cantor/SW --> SSG
Belcher
Petal
SSong

Cantor gets a likely mulligan. I'm not sure what I would do with this SW hand.


Hand 14
Taiga
ESG
SSG
Cantor/SW --> DespRit
Petal
DespRit
SSong

No wincons means Cantor or SW build would get a mulligan.


Conclusion:
Based on this very small sample size, I can see a possible trend that SW is viable for a non-Dark Ritual build of Belcher. Out of 14 hands, 4 were improved by the SW cycle while 2 were worsened. 8 hands were unaffected.

What did I not take into account? Do you see any mistakes? What can this brief study tell us? What is your opinion of keeping Cantor and replaced Dark Ritual with SW?

Kilz88
06-07-2007, 09:04 PM
Alright, now I tried being subtle about it before by saying "why don't you guys try this" but now I think I need to explain myself. I have been testing the deck quite a bit over the last couple nights and came to some final decisions and stand points on this deck. First off, black does not need to be in this deck seeing as "Burning Wish" IS better than "Infernal Tutor" because it is infinitly more versatile. Secondly, I don't quite understand what I am missing with the whole "Street Wraith" situation. What I mean is there is no disadvantage to this card as long as you put it in the correct slots. Insert "Street Wraith" rant here:

Now I had decided to simply observe this whole situation for the most part until now so I have read everyones opinion of the card in this deck. With that said I would like to start by saying: Drawing cards is never bad, Despite paying 2 life. Anusien had mentioned that as an issue in his recent "Unlocking Legacy" article and thought I would hit on it. But never the less, Drawing cards is never bad. In my build I took out a wild cantor, and the 3 dark rituals (cause I don't play black) for the wraith. Therefore all I replaced were mana cards. So, based on that all you have to do is pretend it is a mana card because if it was not in the deck it would be one. It is that simple. I dont understand the issue here. 2 hands:

1:
Street Wraith
Seething Song
Rite of Flame
Elvish Spirit Guide
Land Grant
Lotus Petal
Burning Wish

2:
Street Wraith
Tinder Wall
Lion's Eye Diamond
Simian Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide
Chrome Mox
Land Grant

The decisions are obvious: Keep hand number 1 and mulligan hand number 2. Keep hands with a win condition and mulligan ones that don't whether street wraith exists or not. The only time this card is bad is if someone either played "Stabilizer" on turn one with ancient tomb :rolleyes: or if someone stifles the cycle in which they have made a mistake not saving it for your win conditions. There are no cards better than the ones already in the deck so it is not like something better could be in its spot. If I could run 12 "Street Wraith" I would taking out the worst cards in the deck and moving upward. This deck is about consistancy and "Street is possibly one of the best consistancy cards ever printed. Finally, this card does nothing to the mulligan decision making process in "CRET Belcher".

Btw, I like to call it "SMACKS"...as in the red and green boxed cereal. :wink:

To end, I present...My list:

"SMACKS"

Mana

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

Consistency

4 Street Wraith

Win

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

Land

2 Taiga

Sideboard

4 Xantid Swarm
2 Cave-In
2 Shattering Spree
2 Elephant Grass
1 Armageddon
1 Simplify
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Empty the Warrens


Your welcome. Flame on!

EDIT: I always choose to draw. I think everyone else does too but I thought I would add that.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-07-2007, 09:11 PM
Anusien had mentioned that as an issue in his recent "Unlocking Legacy" article and thought I would hit on it. But never the less, Drawing cards is never bad.

Well, if Anusien said it...

Seriously, here's the thing: Drawing cards might never be bad, but having the cards you actually need in your hand is pretty much always better. With 11 kills and 49 mana, you can look at your hand and know if you have it or not. With Street Wraith, you can't. There's no earthly reason to run the card in this deck, as it eliminates one of the greatest strengths it has.

Cutting black has some merits, but I'd honestly rather run Helm of Awakening and Channel the Suns if I wanted more mana than unreliable card drawing.

Kilz88
06-07-2007, 09:26 PM
Well, if Anusien said it...

With 11 kills and 49 mana, you can look at your hand and know if you have it or not.

With 11 kills, 45 mana, and 4 wraiths it doesnt change. I mean, I cant think of a hand where I wouldnt know whether or not to mulligan.

Illissius
06-07-2007, 09:36 PM
Much as it pains me, I think BreathWeapon might have a point with the Serum Powders. The argument is well past the "but Powder itself makes the hand worse!" and "Powder is only good if there's a single specific card you need" point.

Serum Powder is a cantrip. You draw a hand of seven cards with Powder in it; if it sucks, and with Powder in it, it very well may, you draw a new hand of seven cards. This is where you would've been at without Powders, so having to pitch the previous hand doesn't cost you anything. You go from Powder plus six random cards to seven random cards, so it effectively cantrips. As a bonus, if you actually like the Powder hand, you can keep that, too.

Where this logic breaks down for most decks is that you are liable to draw Powder after your opening hand, when you can no longer throw it away. This is less of an issue for Belcher than pretty much any deck in the format, hence the appeal. That said, it is an issue, especially with (ironically enough) Street Wraith. Other complications include drawing too many win conditions or all of your Land Grant targets together with Powder, making it inadvisable to pitch, and forcing you to take a hard mulligan instead.

Now, all of this isn't saying that Serum Powder is the card to run. Whether the correct choice is an effective cantrip with complications or splashing black for Rituals is debatable (and is happening quite fervently), and the best answer is most likely to test it. But some people were looking at it from the wrong angle, so I thought I'd clear that up.

Peter_Rotten
06-07-2007, 09:43 PM
I mean, I cant think of a hand where I wouldnt know whether or not to mulligan.

Well, what about this that I posted above?

Mox
SWraith
SWraith
ESG
ESG
BWish
LGrant


..all you have to do is pretend it (SW) is a mana card

But sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is a 2nd land or another win condition. Of course it has a greater chance to be a mana source, but it won't always be one.

Ewokslayer
06-07-2007, 09:51 PM
EDIT: I always choose to draw. I think everyone else does too but I thought I would add that.
Why? Keeping a hand because the 8th card will be amazing isn't adviseable.
Letting you opponent get to 2-3 mana against Goblin tokens seems poor as well. Nor is giving them Daze mana.
I don't think it really matters much either way but it seems like choosing to draw isn't always the best choice.

Peter_Rotten
06-07-2007, 09:55 PM
EDIT: I always choose to draw. I think everyone else does too but I thought I would add that.

Really? I find that interesting since I HATE letting my opponent draw against this deck. I especially hate it if they play a blue land since then I have to worry about Daze AND Stifle AND Blasts. Oh, and also Needle. Or if they are playing Swamps, maybe Ritual into EPlague of flipping Null Rod.

Hell, I just convinced myself that I want to play first.

MattH
06-07-2007, 10:08 PM
Well, what about this that I posted above?

Mox
SWraith
SWraith
ESG
ESG
BWish
LGrant
There is some percentage of the time where SW will become a nonmana card, AND that matters (a hand of 4 red rituals, grant, ETW, and a Wraith is still a good hand no matter what Wraith cycles into), AND you wanted it to be Dark Ritual (the contender for the slots it is replacing).

But I think that is a smaller percentage than the times where you wish you didn't have black in the deck: either you draw a Dark Ritual and can't cast it, or you Belch into a non-lethal Bayou, or you draw Bayou, ETW, and five red rituals, etc.

None of these individually is of great likelihood but together I have found that if you sum over all contingencies, SW's unpredictability fucks me over less often than "having black in the deck."

hi-val
06-08-2007, 12:28 AM
I find myself agreeing with Matt. When I first picked up the deck, I was struck with how awkward Dark Ritual is. One must contort the manabase to fit it in, and often, I had it stranded in my hand when I went off. SW becomes a multistage question, then.

Is Dark Ritual good in the deck, or is it a card there because there's simply nothing else in R and G for the deck? To me, it's there because there are no other accelerants on-color. Black has the minor role of bringing in Duresses and the like postboard.

If Dark Ritual is a good card, then we leave it in place. If it is a "placeholder" card, used because there's nothing else good in the colors, then we should replace it.

The deck has enough kill cards, so we are left with draw or mana cards. R and G are terrible for this, and there's nothing good around. Consequently, it looks like SW is the card to put there. I'm happy to admit though that this is truly because it is a placeholder and not to improve consistency, etc. If there were another red or green ritual or accelerant useful on the first turn, then by all means, that's the card to play instead. As it is, I think we have to deal with having fifty six good cards for the deck, but the restriction of having to put four more in.

SW requires a different line of thinking. I'm in the process of testing it out; when I see opening hands, I ask myself if it would be better as Dark Ritual or Wraith. Often, it seems that Wraith is a better card, as it usually turns into mana and also doesn't trick me into contorting my gameplay to use it like Drit sometimes does.

BreathWeapon
06-08-2007, 03:08 AM
Well, if Anusien said it...

Seriously, here's the thing: Drawing cards might never be bad, but having the cards you actually need in your hand is pretty much always better. With 11 kills and 49 mana, you can look at your hand and know if you have it or not. With Street Wraith, you can't. There's no earthly reason to run the card in this deck, as it eliminates one of the greatest strengths it has.
.

No one is basing whether or not they should keep a hand on Street Wraith, they're basing whether or not they should keep a hand on the other six cards. If you can't look at six cards and decide whether or not those six cards are good enough to keep a hand on, you shouldn't be playing this deck to begin with.

There's a definite reason to include Street Wraith, for the 8 cards that Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor requires, it nets an average of +1 mana with a standard deviation of 1, while for 4 cards that Street Wraith averages almost .66 mana source (which could be a Seething Song, Lion's Eye Diamond or second Right of Flame etc.) and reduces the chances of a failed Belcher activation by at least the rate of the Taiga (I think it's 17 percent if you fetch the Bayou and twice that if you fetch the Taiga). The net gain off of just 4 cards for Street Wriath is almost higher than the net gain off of 8 cards for Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor, so clearly there's a reason to consider the card.

I think it's pretty clear to any one that actually puts in the time to PT this deck that Serum Powder and Street Wraith are incredibly good cards.

Comments such as
If you can't look at six cards and decide whether or not those six cards are good enough to keep a hand on, you shouldn't be playing this deck to begin with. are rude and condescending. You do not need to make them and they will not convince anyone of your arguments.

-PR

Bane of the Living
06-09-2007, 04:34 PM
How do you guys feel about Brightstone Ritual? In the sb it can come in against goblins to combo off nearly on its own as a mana source. It gets you mana for your EtW tokens to get the belcher kill should the ground pounding stall out.

If only it was a sorcery..

Whats everyones sb looking like right now?

Without black Id imagine Xantids are in as 4 of's. What are people playing as wish targets? Is armageddon worth it?

honz
06-09-2007, 10:22 PM
simple things first:
Brightstone ritual is not worth it. You are trying to go off turn 2 at the latest, which means there will not be enough gobbos in play for brighstone to pay for itself. Also, goblins is a pretty easy MU; and we need more cards against the poorer ones. Also, it is an instant (as you pointed out...). Goblin War Strike works nicely when your goblin horde gets overpowered.

armageddon is an interesting idea. However, if you cut the wild cantors, finding white is gonna be considerably harder. Geddon definately protects you a good bit, however it is insanely expensive (wish + cast) and the wrong color...

I would just like to say, i have been testing Breath's list for the past 2 weeks or so. It does take alot more skill as to what to mull, what to keep, and when to take a chance on that wraith. However, i have found it lacking, mainly due to the serum powders. Powder has been very unsatifactory here, and i really feel there are better cards to be had. After a good amount of testing i feel confident in saying that powder doesnt belong.

Right now i think CRET belcher > wraith & powder belcher. I am starting to test with the changes listed below.

If you want wraith i think the best option is:
-4 dark ritual
-4 wild cantor
+4 Street wraith
+1 Tinder wall
+3 xantid swarm

Those 3 swarms could be kept as cantors, depending on the meta. ATM i feel combo is being severly hated, with many decks running FoW and Daze.


In not sure about a SB once black is gone. Maybe something like this:
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroblast
1 REB
1 ETW
1 pyroclasm
1 goblin war strike
1 simplify
1 deconstruct
1 duress

you really miss that infernal tutor, but i kept 1 duress because you can still cast it. It was invaluable for me, and i think its best kept just in case...

BreathWeapon
06-10-2007, 12:25 AM
How can you PT with a list for 2 weeks that's only been posted for less than 5 days? Regardless, care to explain why you think Serum Powder was bad in the deck and back it up with math? I've been playing with Serum Powder since last Winter, and short of the less than 1/13 times I top deck it, which is less than the number of times I draw a hand with out a win condition or just a bad hand, I've never felt as tho' the card was disadvantageous to the deck. The card advantage, card quality and tutoring Serum Powder creates is invaluable. It does all sorts of things to make the deck more consistent, like switching in between the three win conditions or increasing the odds of drawing a Land Grant to decrease the odds of misfiring a Belcher etc.

I just don't see people's reasoning for dismissing a free, uncounterable 7 card tutor that's replacing junk in the deck. Just from the numbers, the amount of times you'll top deck it as a dead card are less than the number of times it'll save you a card, and even when you do draw it, it's not entirely a dead card, because you can still cast it to generate mana and storm. I would have guessed people would have cut Street Wraith before they cut Serum Powder from that list, because the card is just so unbelievably strong once you play with it long enough to realize it's strengths. Just taking the list above and replace 4 Street Wraith with 4 Xantid Swarm, then look at how Serum Powder can be used to just find the bugs and either Empty the Warrens or Burning Wish in a six card hand against control. Look at how Serum Powder can be used to find a Belcher and LED in a six card hand and increase the turn 1 win percentage.

Serum Powder is the most skill intensive and powerful card in the deck. You get to set a specific objective for your starting hand by either keeping your Serum Powder hand, RFGing to seven cards and then mulliganing back down to six cards or chaining multiple Serum Powders and achieve it. Considering the deck is perfectly lethal at 5 cards, and half of your games you get to factor in the draw for another tier 2 mana source or fuel for Chrome Mox, you can just abuse Serum Powder and your mulligan for a TKO shot at the opponent by mulliganing in response to his mulligans, or lack of mulligans.

All of your actual skills with this deck are in the mulligan, and to an extent, in the order you play your cards to bluff Empty the Warrens, so you really love any card that gives you more decisions to pick and choose from when you're lethal with only 5 cards.

antimegas
06-12-2007, 02:05 AM
I figure that having the deck list first will help interprit the rest of this reply:

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

4 Xantid Swarm

4 Street Wraith
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Right of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tinder Wall
4 Simain Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant

1 Taiga

In my playtesting of the deck sw seems to be very good. I dont play black because as said before, contorting the manabase is not always reliable, and it adds bayou to the equation.

In the list of R/G I seem left with 4 slots, I dont think that both serum powder and sw go well together but they, on there own have uses.

The four slots I am talking about were 3 cantors and a tiaga. I dont really see the need to play more then 1 land anyway. It just means that when belcher goes of it is a gamble, however small i dont know the math of doing 18- damage and not being able to activate again before they disable the belcher, if you win right then and there. I have yet to lose a game with the one land version due to having double land grant kill me.

Also it seems that the defeat of this deck is FoW and other permision. In the testing Red Elemental Blast had a couple of times were the extra mana was not there and when the deck did have mana to play it, it wasnt there. Xantid swarm solves all of the problems that a Red Elemental blast does short of killing Meddling Mage but there are sideboards and wishes for that, if you dont have another win condition then and there.

Xantid swarm also makes people keep there swords in. That means they have less offense in there deck to kill you and gives you more time to go off if you get thwarted, even if you dont draw Xantid the rest of the match there knowledge of it will effect the game.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-12-2007, 02:36 AM
All of your actual skills with this deck are in the mulligan, and to an extent, in the order you play your cards to bluff Empty the Warrens, so you really love any card that gives you more decisions to pick and choose from when you're lethal with only 5 cards.

No, I love a card that that actually makes the deck better. The recurring problem with your assertions is that you think making the deck more difficult to play improves it. In fact, as should be obvious, the opposite is true; the more complicate you make the deck, the more likely it is that you'll make a play mistake at the wrong moment. Hence, it's only worthwhile if it legitimately improves the power of the deck, which Street Wraith and Serum Powder don't- they just add eight cards that aren't mana or kill conditions, and remove the deck's primary strength of being able to tell from looking at your hand where you stand in terms of being able to kill the opponent. Making decisions more difficult and skill intensive is a drawback, not a bonus.

honz
06-12-2007, 09:50 AM
Bearassisin is right. Not only do you advocate increasing the skill factor of the deck, but adding powder and wraith increases the luck factor as well. The number of games you will loose because of play errors, and unlucky draws will go way up; even the best pilot of the deck is going to make a few errors. That can be considered as lowering consistancy, which should be avoided at all costs.

@antimegas - that is the list i would suggest if you really want SW. I am starting think pyroblast might be better in the Xantid slot. Xantid is better against a deck that has numerous counters, because it prevents all spells from being cast. However, if someone has numerous counters, they will simply counter the Xantid; not to mention xantid is target to the massive amount of creature control in this format.

Pyroblasts are better against deck that only run 4x FoW. If you can counter their first counter, chances are they wont have any others. Pyroblast translates to a better MU (preboard) against FoW affinity, faerie stompy, aluren, landstill, counterbalance decks...etc At the very least, pyroblast can target your own permanents to pump the storm count.

Perhaps the most important thing is that pyroblast lets you go off a turn faster. Also, you don't have to cast pyroblast, you just have to hold on to it in case.

BreathWeapon
06-12-2007, 02:56 PM
Luck has nothing to do with Serum Powder or Street Wraith and I don't think that skill has anything to do with Serum Powder or Street Wraith either, it's just a question of using statistics and experience to guide you thru' your opening hands. You shouldn't make any mistakes when you are playing with this deck, because all of your decisions are based off of the math and mechanics behind it, and you get the longest possible rest period in between all of your matches. Saying that Serum Powder and Street Wraith don't legitimately improve the deck is complete nonsense, because you're clearly improving the deck by decreasing the number of mulligans, increasing the ratio of mana to threats and removing failed Belcher activations from the Bayou. Saying that increasing your options only increases your opportunities for making mistakes over your ability to out play your opponent is laziness.

Go look at TMD, the Vintage Belcher players there are using Serum Powder to.

Ewokslayer
06-12-2007, 03:11 PM
Go look at TMD, the Vintage Belcher players there are using Serum Powder to.

Vintage Belcher lists also don't run Empty the Warrens or Burning Wish as Win conditions. Serum Powder in those decks increases the number of "win" conditions from 9 (4 Belchers, 1 Tinker, 1 Demonic Tutor, 1 Memory Jar, 1 Wheel of Fortune, 1Time Twister) to 13. Legacy Belcher already plays 11 Win conditions and doesn't require anymore. By adding Serum Powder you are diluting the mana acceleration portion of the deck thus creating more mulligans. So you are increasing the number of mulligans you are going to have to take in order to allievate the pain of Mulliganing.

Also you don't seem to see the problem with running both Street Wraith AND Serum Powder. You have now increased the number of cards drawn off of Street Wraith that can be useless by 4 cards.


Luck has nothing to do with Serum Powder or Street Wraith and I don't think that skill has anything to do with Serum Powder or Street Wraith either, it's just a question of using statistics and experience to guide you thru' your opening hands. You shouldn't make any mistakes when you are playing with this deck, because all of your decisions are based off of the math and mechanics behind it, and you get the longest possible rest period in between all of your matches.
How is going from a hand that is certain to do something to a hand that has a dead card in Serum Powder or a unknown card in Street Wraith not increasing luck?

BreathWeapon
06-12-2007, 03:48 PM
Vintage Belcher lists also don't run Empty the Warrens or Burning Wish as Win conditions. Serum Powder in those decks increases the number of "win" conditions from 9 (4 Belchers, 1 Tinker, 1 Demonic Tutor, 1 Memory Jar, 1 Wheel of Fortune, 1Time Twister) to 13. Legacy Belcher already plays 11 Win conditions and doesn't require anymore. By adding Serum Powder you are diluting the mana acceleration portion of the deck thus creating more mulligans. So you are increasing the number of mulligans you are going to have to take in order to allievate the pain of Mulliganing.

Also you don't seem to see the problem with running both Street Wraith AND Serum Powder. You have now increased the number of cards drawn off of Street Wraith that can be useless by 4 cards.


How is going from a hand that is certain to do something to a hand that has a dead card in Serum Powder or a unknown card in Street Wraith not increasing luck?

1) Vintage Belcher does use ETW and Burning Wish as win conditions, altho' some lists don't in favor of using the Pacts.

2) That's assuming that the sole purpose of Serum Powder is to find a win condition and not find a winning hand.

3) There is difference between removing a mana source and removing Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor from the deck. A mana source has no draw back, while Dark Ritual requires one of 13 other cards to be cast, can't be used to cast other rituals and it forces the deck to include Bayou and Wild Cantor. Bayou in and of itself causes game losses do to failed Belcher activations, and Wild Cantor with out Dark Ritual is worse than Serum Powder at causing mulligans. At least with Serum Powder, the card can RFG the hand, reduce the maximum deck size and then redraw the hand +1 card.

4) I do understand the problem with using Serum Powder and Street Wraith, and I also understand that I took that problem into consideration when calculating the net gain of Street Wraith and still found it to be positive. It's not as simple as drawing into 4 more dead cards, because those 4 more dead cards can RFG themselves from the deck before Street Wraith is factored into the equation. That said, using Serum Powder and Street Wraith together isn't an argument for discluding either Serum Powder or Street Wraith from the deck, because there's nothing that can replace either card and affect the goldfish. I often SB out Street Wraith for Xantid Swarm, but that's neither here nor there when the sole purpose of the MD is to maximize it's speed.

5) First, why would you go from a hand that is certain to do something to another hand in the first place? Second, how is a six card hand any less likely to do something than a six card hand + Serum Powder or Street Wraith? Third, there's no guarantee that the Dark Ritual or Wild Cantor replacing Serum Powder or Street Wraith will do anything either, and in Wild Cantor's case it most likely wont.

steffri666
06-20-2007, 06:21 AM
I did some playtesting with the original list (page 1) and I just like to state, that Dark Ritual was a dead card in some matches, more often than not, and having the Bayou did cost me 1 game.
I'm not proposing Street Wraith and/or Serum Powder since I didn't test either. I think Dark Ritual and to a lesser extent Wild Cantor and the 2nd land are the weakest cards in the deck. I already did +1 Wall/-1 Cantor and I'm thinking about SW in place of Dark Ritual, too. IMO it comes down to see which hands are better with a Dark Ritual and which are better with a random card (most likely mana). From the looks I don't like Powder as I reason with IBA and others that improving required skill does not necessarily improve the deck.

BreathWeapon
06-20-2007, 03:55 PM
The number of people that just look at Serum Powder and dismiss it with out ever bothering to test Serum Powder to confirm their suspicions is disheartening, but I'm just going to let this go for the moment.

Onto some rather interesting MD/SB tech, I think Leyline of the Meek is an incredibly strong card in this deck, because it doubles the storm count of Empty the Warrens in order to increase the power of a low storm count Empty the Warrens and win one turn faster, which can be used to out race 2cc removal on the play, 3cc removal on the draw and give you an edge in the combo mirror. You're resistant to Engineered Plague, you're immune to Sandstorm and against Goblins you're resistant to Mogg Fanatic, Pyrokinesis and immune to Goblin Sharpshooter while being able to trade with any Goblin on the board. If you manage to draw 2 of them, then you're immune to Pyroclasm.

You've also got really good odds of drawing your Leyline of the Meek if you use Serum Powder, and you can mess around with Roar of the Wurm and Grizzly Fate as alternate win conditions to get around Pyroclasms and Stifles.

The card is a free, uncounterable Time Walk for Empty the Warrens that makes it resistant/immune to some of the most prevalent removal against it while turning mediocre hands into awesome hands. You've got the obvious problem that the Leyline of the Meek doesn't affect Goblin Charbelcher, but keeping a hand with Leyline of the Meek and Goblin Charbelcher usually means the opponent will counter the third/fourth mana source, saving your Goblin Charbelcher, and dig for Empty the Warrens removal. It also means that after your opponent counters the third/fourth mana source, you're more likely to top deck your way back into the game by redrawing some mana and casting a more powerful Empty the Warrens. You can also always imprint the card on Chrome Mox if you can't find another use for it. It essentially feels like Empty the Warren's version of Lion's Eye Diamond.

Bane of the Living
06-20-2007, 05:21 PM
Our teams been doing extensive testing with the SW//Powder version of the deck and it certainly opens the margine of early threat density. All of this decks strength comes from the first 1-2 turns. If opponents from most any deck can stay alive till turns 3+ they begin to stabilize. Serum Powder helps focus on the immediate opening hand you need to win ASAP.

We've been throwing away many hands and thinning the deck of a fair portion of cards. It only takes more attention when you draw your hands. Laziness and neglect of the decks workings can open you up to wrong decisions when playing Serum Powder.

We've been very happy with it.

The Counterbalance Thresh matchup is near unwinnable. White thresh has Stifle, Needle, Fow, Mage, and a huge clock (goyf). REB's dont seem to be enough to stop them so we might go with the 8 blast plan.

Xantid Swarm sucks since he cant be cast off Rituals and can be a pain to cast regardless.

Red versions of thresh crush you terribly with Pyroclasms.

BreathWeapon
06-20-2007, 08:04 PM
Thank god some one else has come on board the Serum Powder band wagon.

I don't think that the aggro-control match up is unwinnable, Belcher and Warrens should resolve before Counterabalance and Meddling Mage are even relevant, being on the draw equalizes Daze and that just leaves Force of Will, Stifle, Engineered Explosives and Pithing Needle to deal with. Engineered Explosives can be raced with Leyline of the Meek, Pithing Needle is unlikely to be included over Engineered Explosives because of the disproportionate ratio of Empty the Warrens to Goblin Charbelcher and Force of Will and Stifle can be counter acted with the 8 Blast plan.

Right now I'm using the version I posted with -4 Street Wraith for +4 Leyline of the Meek, 8 Blasts in the SB for control and 4 Goblin Warstrike in the SB for testing. I don't know if Leyline of the Meek is better than Street Wraith, or if they're even comparable, but I suggest trying it out for good measure. No one expects you to be able to out race their 2/3cc mass removal, the amount of MWS disconnects I get is hilarious.

jamest
06-20-2007, 11:54 PM
1x Rite of Flame in the SB as a Wish target has worked well for me in testing. It helps smooth out hands with too many win conditions, because it allows Wish to double as mana and storm builder.

Bovinious
06-24-2007, 11:10 PM
So I've been playing this deck for a while and have been pretty happy with it, I'm running the original version w/ -4 Dark Rit -1 Bayou for +4 Street Wraith + 1 Tinder Wall. I'm considering using Serum Powder rather than Wild Cantor but in goldfishing and playing I havn't had a problem drawing a win con in my original 7 and or my mull to 6 to want to add Powder over Cantor. Cantor sometimes can transfer mana to turn 2 and let me win then or turn ESG into red mana letting me combo off, and of course it can add to storm making more mans.

What I wanted to ask people about was their sideboards, there seems to be a lot of variability here and I just wanted to ask for some suggestions.

My current SB is:

4 Pyroblast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify
3 ??????????

I think these 12 cards are pretty much standard, but I'm not sure about the last 3 slots. I'm currently considering Goblin War Strike, Duress, Cave-In, Deconstruct, Reverent Silence, and any number of Xantid Swarms/REBs as possible. Some people seem to like Goblin War Strike but I really don't see when it would be good, lets say I ETW for 8 goblins (pretty bad hand), this kills the opponent in 3 attack phases from now. For War Strike to win one turn earlier, I would need to topdeck Burning Wish AND 3 mana to be able to cast the Wish and Strike, all in the 3 turns when the goblins are swinging in, all of this after going off w/ ETW which likely emptyed my hand. This seems incredibly unlikely to me, and the odds of Strike mattering get even worse if you ETW for 10+ b/c then you only need 2 attacks to win. I just can't think of a situation where the card would be useful, I figured maybe in the face of Ensnaring Bridge/Elephant Grass/Propaganda/Ghostly Prison/Solitary Confinement that War Strike could shine, but then wouldnt I rather Burning Wish for artifact or enchantment kill? I guess Simplify wouldnt be as good against enchantress b/c they can sac another enchantment, but Strike wouldnt help vs. Confinement either way, so I guess War Strike really only helps versus Elephant Grass or if you draw into the perfect 2-3 cards and NEED to win before the next attack phase, doesn't really seem worth it to me but I can't think of what else is better in SB other than maybe REBs.

So as of now my final 3 cards are Cave-In, Duress, and Goblin War Strike, what does everyone elses board look like/what are your thoughts?

AngryTroll
06-24-2007, 11:17 PM
I have been playing with the War Strike, and it has been alright. In testing against TES it has been randomly good, and it can break through to an opponent if the board stalls out, which can happen with a slower hand. It's pretty narrow, but it has been nice to have sometimes. It is a Wish target, so unless you have another card you really want to run over it, Goblin War Strike has been randomly useful and never really bad, because you simply wish for something else.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 01:04 AM
The big thing to remember is to board out Seething Song against control and board in Red Elemental Blast instead.

Diminishing Returns MUST be in the SB so the deck can build up to storm 10 against Goblins game 3 and not lose to Pyrokinesis or Goblin Sharpshooter.
Crash is tech in the SB because Burning Wish can be cast for free after Land Grant for Taiga, Spirit Guide and Burning Wish for Crash on the following turn. Some people SB in Shattering Spree to try and save game 2 against Chalice of the Void.

Leyline of the Meek is a generically good SB card to use against any non-blue deck if you MD Pyro Blast.

Xantid Swarm is only good when you're on the play game 3 and your opponent has SBed out his Swords to Plowshares, can't Daze it and it doesn't Time Walk him into Meddling Mage

Right now I have 4 MD Serum Powder and 4 MD Leyline of the Meek with a SB of 8 Blasts, 4 Xantid Swarm, 1 Empty the Warrens, 1 Diminishing Returns and 1 Crash.

The SB plan is game 2 on the draw SB out Leyline of the Meek and Seething Song and SB in 8 Blasts and game 3 SB out Leyline of the Meek and SB in 4 Xantid Swarm. I really don't care if Goblins wins game 2 off of Chalice of the Void, because Pyrokinesis and Goblin Sharpshooter are just as big of a problem as Chalice of the Void and you need an answer to them if you want to be able to rely on Empty the Warrens on the play game 3.

Bovinious
06-25-2007, 01:26 AM
@ Breathweapon:

Diminishing Returns doesn't seem so hot to me, the only way I can reliably cast it is popping an LED for UUU, and then once I cast it and it resolves I could just draw into 7 mana or a 7 card hand that doesnt work, wouldnt it usually always be better to just Wish for ETW and win? I guess it may be useful if a creature route wont work to find belcher but I have Infernal Tutor SB for that. Oh and why did you say you need 10 storm vs goblins? I think you worry too much about the goblin matchup, no one plays Sharpshooter, pyrokenisis doesnt hurt much, and its not like you cant use Belcher to win, 4 Burning Wish ---> IT and 4 Belcher means 8 ways to find Belcher if your really that concerned gobs will get a Sharpshooter online in time for 12-16 goblins to not beat them.

Leyline of the Meek seems ok against E. Plague, I don't know why MD at all, that 1 turn quicker kill prolly isn't worth the hands that Leyline will make subpar. Against Plague I think that Wishing for Simplify/Hull Breach, racing, or going for Belcher kill seems like a good enough plan

I think I'm going to go with more REBs rather than Xantid Swarm but both are good if you have the space obviously.

Crash is an instant btw so I don't know why you have 1 sideboard.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 03:30 AM
Damnit, I had Crash confused with another card, I haven't been this pissed off since I found out Hunting Pack was an instant.

No, it's not better to wish for an Empty the Warrens game two/three on the play, because you have to assume that your non-blue opponent mulliganed into an answer for Empty the Warrens and is waiting/praying for you to cast it. So you either have to get to a Goblin Charbelcher or a 10+ storm Empty the Warrens or lose the game/match. Infernal Tutor is terrible, this deck can't reach 8 mana on the play with 7 cards consistently, and even if you can, you're a sitting duck for a Tin-Street Hooligan.

No one is ever going to pre-emptively cast an Engineered Plague against you, and racing Engineered Plague, Pyroclasm and Engineered Explosives is exactly what Leyline of the Meek allows you to do. You'll notice that no card that you can put into that slot can actually increase the likely hood of you being able to keep your hand, you can't even afford to gamble with Street Wraith on the draw, so you may as well consider taking a free, uncounterable storm generator for Empty the Warrens.

As an aside, I think Oxidize is better than Shattering Spree in the SB, given the choice, RFGing an Elvish Spirit Guide is better than RFGing a Simian Spirit Guide more often than not.

Peter_Rotten
06-25-2007, 08:32 AM
Damnit, I had Crash confused with another card, I haven't been this pissed off since I found out Hunting Pack was an instant.

Did you mean Cave-In - the pitch Pryoclasm?


No one is ever going to pre-emptively cast an Engineered Plague against you,

I don't think that this will be true all the time. I've seen a few first turn Dark Ritual --> Plague, go.


As an aside, I think Oxidize is better than Shattering Spree in the SB, given the choice, RFGing an Elvish Spirit Guide is better than RFGing a Simian Spirit Guide more often than not.

But unfortunately, you lose the ability to BWish for artifact removal then. However, I could reasonably see playing a mix of Spree and Oxidize in the SB.

Bovinious
06-25-2007, 10:13 AM
A 10+ storm ETW is almost NEVER going to happen, maybe if you were on the draw, used those 8 cards, then went wish ---> IT ---> ETW. I think you worry too much that the opponent will always have an answer, the burden is on THEM to answer ur possible goblin tokens, not on you to use Belcher or kill in one attack phase. If they mulled to oblivion to find that EE/Clasm, you probably have a good chance at making a 2nd combo because they actually have to beat you at some point and wont be able to if they mull for 1 card. This deck can't reach 8 mana consistently this is true, thats why IT is a SB card, you wish for it when you can use it and when you can use it it helps you get Belcher when ETW won't work or at least makes 2 more goblins if you cast IT for ETW. Diminishing returns is even more narrow than IT because you NEED an LED to be able to cast it, barring some double petal/Cantor happenings.

People will cast Plague ASAP, just usually you will have gone off before they have the opportunity to cast it. if they have Rit ---> Plague they will do so, or if you mull to 5 and dont combo before their turn 3 theyd cast it then also, just because this deck is fast enough that they dont get the chance to do it that often doesnt mean they wouldnt/dont want to. I still don't see how Leyline of the Meek won't hurt your draws, do you not play 2 of these 3 in the last 8 slots: Street Wraith, Wild Cantor, Serum Powder. All of these cards help your goldfish as opposed to being dead sometimes, even Cantor can help you go off turn 2 or channel green mana into red and let you go off.

Oxidize is 100% worse than Shattering Spree, you cant Burning Wish for it, and it does nothing against Chalice/3sphere which have been the biggest problem artifacts for me. Sbing in 3 Shattering Spree and leaving one SB lets me do stuff like remove SSG, SSG, ESG, Seething Song, Shattering Spree kill your board against Stax, even in the face of 3sphere and chalice at 1 that works, while Oxidize sits around and cant be wished for.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 06:30 PM
A 10+ storm ETW is almost NEVER going to happen, maybe if you were on the draw, used those 8 cards, then went wish ---> IT ---> ETW. I think you worry too much that the opponent will always have an answer, the burden is on THEM to answer ur possible goblin tokens, not on you to use Belcher or kill in one attack phase. If they mulled to oblivion to find that EE/Clasm, you probably have a good chance at making a 2nd combo because they actually have to beat you at some point and wont be able to if they mull for 1 card. This deck can't reach 8 mana consistently this is true, thats why IT is a SB card, you wish for it when you can use it and when you can use it it helps you get Belcher when ETW won't work or at least makes 2 more goblins if you cast IT for ETW. Diminishing returns is even more narrow than IT because you NEED an LED to be able to cast it, barring some double petal/Cantor happenings.

People will cast Plague ASAP, just usually you will have gone off before they have the opportunity to cast it. if they have Rit ---> Plague they will do so, or if you mull to 5 and dont combo before their turn 3 theyd cast it then also, just because this deck is fast enough that they dont get the chance to do it that often doesnt mean they wouldnt/dont want to. I still don't see how Leyline of the Meek won't hurt your draws, do you not play 2 of these 3 in the last 8 slots: Street Wraith, Wild Cantor, Serum Powder. All of these cards help your goldfish as opposed to being dead sometimes, even Cantor can help you go off turn 2 or channel green mana into red and let you go off.

Oxidize is 100% worse than Shattering Spree, you cant Burning Wish for it, and it does nothing against Chalice/3sphere which have been the biggest problem artifacts for me. Sbing in 3 Shattering Spree and leaving one SB lets me do stuff like remove SSG, SSG, ESG, Seething Song, Shattering Spree kill your board against Stax, even in the face of 3sphere and chalice at 1 that works, while Oxidize sits around and cant be wished for.

1) 10 plus storm Empty the Warrens happen all the time after a Diminishing Returns, and saying Diminishing Returns is more narrow than Infernal Tutor because it requires Lion's Eye Diamond is a dubious argument. Were people actually casting Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor on the play and passing the turn, while praying they would have the black mana and Hellbent to cast it in CRETBelcher game 2/3 and not expect to lose?

The burden is on you to kill them before they can cast their answer to Empty the Warrens on game 2/3 on the draw, because they will likely MD 4 answers to Empty the Warrens and SB 4 more answers (my meta is extremely anti-Empty the Warrens). You either go for Goblin Charbelcher, go for Diminishing Returns into a storm 10+ Empty the Warrens or a Goblin Charblecher or you use Leyline of the Meek to make you immune to Rain of Shards, Sandstorm, Scorching Winds or Engineered Plague and race Pyroclasm, Engineered Explosives or Powder Keg on the play and Pernicious Deed, Engineered Plague, Tividar's Crusade or Hailstorm on the draw.

2) Any one who pre-emptively plays Engineered Plague, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is a retard, because their telling their opponent to don't commit his resources to Empty the Warrens and either go for a Diminishing Returns or top deck for a Goblin Charbelcher. Why would you ever pre-emptively cast an answer to Empty the Warrens when summoning sickness gives you the opportunity to untap and cast it, when your opponent has committed his resources to the board?

Edit: Are we arguing the same point?

Leyline of the Meek is really, really good if Engineered Plague, Rain of Shards and Sandstorm catch on as the new default removal spell for those colors.

I think Wild Cantor is garbage, so I'm not going to bother arguing against it, but the problem with Street Wraith is that Street Wraith does not let you keep a hand because you can Cycle it, you just get to make a "six" or "five" card hand stronger with it. Leyline of the Meek does the same thing, but it does the same thing significantly better in the case of Empty the Warrens and not at all in the case of Goblin Charblecher. I think you NEED to play this card to statistically reduce your opponent's outs to your Empty the Warrens.

I play both Serum Powder and Leyline of the Meek in the last 8 slots.

3) I didn't mean cut all of your Shattering Spree for Oxidize, I meant play a set of Oxidize to SB in on the draw game 2 against Goblins. If your opponent waits a turn to play Chalice of the Void at 1, he's dead, so Oxidize is just using a less vital ESG to remove Chalice of the Void.

I was however not considering Faerie Stompy, where Force of Will is a possibility, but Chalice of the Void + Force of Will when you are on the draw is likely a game loss any way. If your opponent Chalices for 1 on the play against R/g Belcher, he made a mistake, because Chalice of the Void at 0 is better, and you should just imprint the removal spell and go about your business.

I'm kind of sketchy on that last point, if you play against bad players who make that mistake then I can see Shattering Spree, but my opponent's know the deck inside and out.

Bovinious
06-25-2007, 08:27 PM
1) I guess your right that IT is only useful when can pop LED for black, then IT for ETW/Belcher, which costs more mana amount than Returns. I'm not saying running a Returns SB is bad, I'm just saying I prefer using IT, I may even put a Returns SB just because I can't think of anything better for my last 3 slots. Returns could get you 7 cards that dont win or give your opponent ETW hate or counter-magic, I guess it depends if you wanna gamble if they already have the answer or can get in 2-3 turns or if you wanna cast Returns, get lethal goblins, and then give them 7 new cards to find an anwser, of course this all depends on the mana you have available and what your up against.

Apparently you personally really do need to worry about ETW hate if the burden is actually on you to beat their hate rather than their hate to beat you, doesnt really make sense because this deck will go off turn one more often than people will have hate unless they really are overprepared for ETW, in which case I'm not even sure I'd play this deck.

2) I don't think preemptively playing the ETW hate is smart, I'd rather force the combo player to use their resoruces as well, but I think if people can somehow get a plague/EE/deed/watever before you go off they sometimes will, just so they don't have to worry about that any more and can start focusing on actually beating you. I was more saying that the hate comes after the the goblins not because people are smart but b/c the goblins come faster than the hate usually, so we basically are saying the same thing I think.

Street Wraith to me seems good because it replaces Dark Ritual, saying Street Wraith is a question mark is true but if you imagine it was a Dark Rit you'd realize the card you get with Wraith is usually more helpful than Dark Ritual. Rit sat in my hand dead so many times when I ran it and Wraith can become a useful spell. Obviously you wouldn't rely on Wraith's cycle making the hand playable, but in that case Dark Rit in its spot prolly wouldn't have made it playable either. If I was in an environment full of ETW hate I might pack Leyline, but I just don't see any need for where I play. I'm not 100% sold on Wild Cantor either, if I were to cut him I'd do Powder's over him but I havn't had great difficulting find a wincon in my opening 2 grips.

3) I still don't see what your saying on Oxidize, Oxidize can never remove a Chalice at 1, and it needs green mana which is harder to get ESP w/o Cantor. Red mana is more important true, but red is also so much easier to get making Spree better in that it cant really be countered and can take out multiple artifacts.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 11:44 PM
1) The important thing about Diminishing Returns is that after an opponent has mulliganed into an answer for Empty the Warrens, you can Burning Wish into Diminishing Returns and force them to redraw their hand, and then you can cast Empty the Warrens for 10+ storm and either leave them with out enough time to cast their 2/3cc answer to Empty the Warrens or leave them with out an answer. If your opponent has a 1cc answer, Rain of Blades, Sandstorm, Scorching Winds, then either Leyline of the Meek makes you immune to that answer or you can refuse to attack, use the 20 Goblins as a defensive wall and then find either Goblin Charbelcher or Burning Wish for Goblin Warstrike.

It's not unusual for prepared, not over prepared, opponents to have access to up to 8 answers to Empty the Warrens between the MD and the SB. Pernicious Deed is already a MD card in Landstill, Engineered Explosives is already a MD card in Threshold, Trinket Mage for Engineered Explosives and Living Wish for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale are already MD cards for Faerie Stompy, Bomberman, Gamekeeper/Salvagers and Cephalid Breakfast, Ghostly Prison, Magus of the Tabernacle and Windborn Muse are already MD cards for White Stax, Burning Wish is already a MD card for TES and Aggro-Loam, Pyroclasm, Earthquake and Devastating Dreams are already MD cards for mid-range aggro, aggro-control and Aggro-Loam, Sandstorm, Rain of Blades, Bloodfire Dwarf, Breath of Darigaaz, Slice and Dice and Echoing Decay are all MD answers that I think will see play in the future, Engineered Plague can see play in the MD and is already a SB card for many decks and Echoing Truth can see play in the MD if they are playing Merchant Scroll or may be in the SB.

It's not hard to see a deck using up to 8 answers against Empty the Warrens at all, you have to know how to play around that hate or play thru' that hate if you want to play with Empty the Warrens.

Edit: Ironically the only threat you have no conceivable defense against is Crop Rotation for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.

2) You should be using Serum Powder regardless of what the other card is, because Serum Powder increases the chance that this deck will find Land Grant, and sometimes finding Land Grant is the most important thing in this deck. Serum Powder and Leyline of the Meek also synergize with each other, so you have some discretion about what your starting hand will be.

3) The opponent should cast Chalice of the Void at 0 against R/g Belcher and not at 1, because the artifact acceleration is more important and more numerous than the 1cc acceleration. Assuming the opponent knows this, then Oxidize is no different than Shattering Spree, but Oxidize uses a less important Spirit Guide than Shattering Spree in order to remove the artifact.

It's really an irrelevant point, I'd probably play Shattering Spree any way since it imprints for a more important color in the event the opponent does cast Chalice of the Void.

Should I write a continuation to Hival's article? People don't seem to understand the dynamics of this deck in game 2/3 post board, and I think those dynamics are actually more important than game 1. Any one can win game 1 with deck by accident, but winning game 2/3 takes skill.

Bovinious
06-26-2007, 12:59 AM
1) If your opponent mulls into ETW hate, you have other options such as Wish ---> Duress if you have another win-con in hand, or Wish ---> IT ---> Belcher if you have 2 more mana. I suppose having a Diminishing Returns SB as an option for when you have niether of these 2 cases cant hurt. I don't know why you worry about all of these crap commons no has ever heard and no one plays, but the only playable card Leyline of the Meek protects against is E. Plague, it doesnt help vs. Clasm, Deed, EE, Devastating Dreams, Rolling and normal Earthquake so I guess were gunna disagree on Leyline over Wraith/Cantor MD. And Tabernacle really doesnt seem to be much of a problem, shouldnt we stomp any deck running that? Its not like theyll have much of a clock...

EDIT: I guess Leyline turn 0 actually helps you be faster than some of those answers, didnt realize that..

2) Serum Powder might be better than Cantor, the only problem I have with it is that sometimes 6 card hands are fine and 7th card being Cantor just lets me get an extra storm, whereas Powder would leave me a dead card. In my experience the Cantor's transfer of mana to the next turn or the filtering of green to red seems more significant than the extra aid in finding a wincon Powder provides. Ill prolly try Powder though since dismissing it based on the deck owns hard enough now is prolly bad logic.

3) Yes chalice for 0 hurts more than chalice for 1, you and I know that because you play the deck but some people still try lay chalice for 1, esp if they draw 2 chalices, the 2nd will be for 1 assuming the first was for 0. Even in that situation though I like Spree for multiple kill possibilities but like you said it doesnt matter much as both work and both can be fit in.

The purpose of HiVal's article was to summarize the deck's matchup vs. Fish, which I think it did pretty well. I think it also did a pretty good job showcasing the deck except that I found the MD Pyroblasts a little odd, maybe that was b/c he knew he was gunna be playing vs. Fish. I'm not sure what you mean by game 2/3 dynamics, obviously you don't know for sure what if any hate they have for you but you can usually guess by what color/deck theyre running, seems like anyone running this deck should have a plan to counter the hate, the plan differing from list to list and SB to SB.

BreathWeapon
06-26-2007, 05:12 AM
1) Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor or Duress just doesn't work that well, the Burning Wish is going to Time Walk the opponent into his turn and give him the chance to use other disruption cards and the resources expended on casting Duress could leave you with an unplayable hand (tho' I guess it's better than losing if you don't have Lion's Eye Diamond and you do have Lotus Petal).

Those commons aren't crap, Echoing Decay, Sandstorm and Rain of Blades are excellent removal spells for their colors in a format defined by Goblin Lackey and Empty the Warrens. No, you don't beat decks with The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale any way, Gamekeeper/Salvagers will use it to sacrifice their Gamekeeper, Cephalid Breakfast has a fundamental turn of two, and you'll find it in Landstill and White Stax as a singleton.

The entire point of Leyline of the Meek is that it makes you immune to 1cc removal for Empty the Warrens, lets you race 2cc removal for Empty the Warrens on the play and lets you race 3cc removal for Empty the Warrens on the draw while increasing the goldfish rate and making hands with low count Empty the Warrens playable.

2) Serum Powder is the best non win condition, non mana source in the deck. You wont recognize it until you play dozens, if not hundreds of games with it and start calculating the virtual card advantage it saves you and the number of games it wins because you found Belcher instead of Empty the Warrens or a Shattering Spree or a Blast.

Wild Cantor isn't as awful as I thought, he and Street Wraith are fighting over the same slot since both of them are almost identical in their effects.

Cait_Sith
06-26-2007, 07:27 AM
Wild Cantor isn't as awful as I thought, he and Street Wraith are fighting over the same slot since both of them are almost identical in their effects.

Wild Cantor mana fixes, mana accels, and give +1 to storm count. Street Wraith cycles. How do they do the same thing? Honestly I'd rather have the mana and the storm.

BreathWeapon
06-26-2007, 02:01 PM
Wild Cantor mana fixes, mana accels, and give +1 to storm count. Street Wraith cycles. How do they do the same thing? Honestly I'd rather have the mana and the storm.

Because both cards have the same effect on hands,

When Belcher draws Street Wraith or Wild Cantor, Belcher has to evaluate its hand based on the six other cards in it to see if it's playable, and if it's playable then either Street Wraith or Wild Cantor can be used to improve the hand. The difference is that Wild Cantor gives the deck less ??? in Belcher's hand, because the card can transfer mana from red to green or green to red, transfer mana from one turn to the next, imprint on Chrome Mox for 2 colors and add storm. Storm Wraith is doing the same thing, it's just doing it by hopefully cycling into another mana and/or storm.

The most interesting thing about Wild Cantor is that Burning Wish turns him into a Duress after the opponent mulligans for an answer to Empty the Warrens. That play isn't as good as casting Leyline of the Meek, but Leyline of the Meek doesn't have Wild Cantor's other abilities.

Bovinious
06-26-2007, 03:24 PM
Wild Cantor and Street Wraith arn't the same at all. Wild Cantor can add mana for turn 2 but never for turn 1, altho sometimes it can turn ESG into red letting you combo off. Wraith however, assuming you keep a hand of wincon, 5 mana, wraith, will draw you into mana 4 out of 5 times (10 wincons left, 40 mana left, 3 wraiths left). Every mana spell in your deck (except Cantor) makes at least 1 mana, and Seething Song makes 2, LED 3 etc, so its a pretty accurate statement that Street Wraith is like .8 mana, or at leats 1 mana 4 of 5 times, making it probably better than Cantor. Wild Cantor does have other uses like helping you cast SB cards, but overall I think Cantor is the weakest card in the deck and would run Wraith every time.


Echoing Decay, Sandstorm and Rain of Blades are excellent removal spells...

I LOL'D.

But seriously, it would have to be one distorted meta for those cards to be even considered nearly playable, and if they are considered playable for some awful reason I wouldn't run an ETW deck in that case. Salvagers Game doesnt run Tabernacle as far as I know and isnt playable much if at all anyways, Cephalid Breakfast no one plays either, and vs. Stax I'd be more worried about 3sphere and Chalice which actually are ran in every list. I really find it hard to believe any good Landstill deck would run a Tabernacle, what are they gunna dig for it and recur it w/ Crucible? And Crop Rotation in Landstill is even more laughable in Landstill if thats why its a 1 of.

Again if you need to run 4 Leyline of the Meek MD to defend against all of these obscure spells I wouldn't run this deck in the first place, or any ETW deck.



2) Serum Powder is the best non win condition, non mana source in the deck.

You realize the whole deck is mana and wincons right? That statement basically said Serum Powder is the worst card in my deck (except I guess you think its better than Street Wraith). Thats not a very compelling arguement for inclusion, stating its worse than the whole rest of the deck. I'm still not sure Wild Cantor is better, I feel Wild Cantor is the weakest card in my list atm and apparently Serum Powder is the weakest card in your list as well, so they are probably close to equal.

BreathWeapon
06-26-2007, 06:53 PM
1)

No one should be casting Wild Cantor and counting on the mana when it Time Walks into Daze, Stifle, Duress, Pithing Needle, 3cc Removal, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void or Null Rod, Meddling Mage on the draw and it can be removed with Swords to Plowshares, Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm Incinerator or let Goblins Wasteland/Rishadan Port the Taiga or Tin Street Hooligan the Chrome Mox. If you are even playing Tinder Wall and passing the turn, you are probably playing the deck wrong, unless you are in game 2 against control and using the additional R to support a Blast on the following turn (you have to board out Wild Cantor for a set of Blasts against control)

2)

What creature removal is and isn't good in a format is based on the threats that define the format, Empty the Warrens and Goblin Lackey are the threats that define the format, and any creature removal that answers those threats is worth using. White, Green and Black do not have other less than 3cc answers to Empty the Warrens, so they're obligated to either use those cards or Engineered Explosives and Powder Keg.

Sandstorm is actually a really, really good removal spell in Landstill. I've been using a U/b/g Landstill list with 4 Sandstorm for awhile, and I have a favorable game against Goblins because of it. You either use the first Sandstorm to kill a Goblin Lackey or you save the first Sandstorm and use the second Sandstorm to turn them into a Pyroclasm. Echoing Decay isn't bad in the deck either, because it kills any Goblin, Meddling Mage and can 2 for 1.

Yes, Gamekeeper/Salvagers uses The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as a sweeper/sacrifice out let and yes, people do play Cephalid Breakfast. I blame the apparent lack of Cephalid Breakfast in this format to too few Legacy players that play Extended, but any aggro-control deck with a fundamental turn of two is obviously going to see some play at some point.

It's really not that strange for me, because I'm in Europe, and the European metagame is frankly better than the American metagame at playing combo decks in numbers (look at the T8's in Germany).

3)

Look, R/g Belcher is 11 win conditions, 41 mana accelerants and 8 open slots. Of those 8 open slots, the possibilities are Serum Powder, Street Wraith, Leyline of the Meek, Red Elemental Blast, Pyro Blast, Xantid Swarm, Goblin Welder and Wild Cantor. Of those 8 open slots, I feel that Serum Powder is the best card in that slot, because the card optimizes the rest of the deck and affects the goldfish, so there are really only 4 open slots left. At that point, there is no other card that improves the deck's goldfish, because you have to evaluate Wild Cantor and Street Wraith based on the other cards in the hand making the hand playable (disregarding Wild Cantor as a possible mana source and what colors those cards imprint for).

I feel that Wild Cantor does a better job than Street Wraith at making the deck consistent, because I have to ask the same question about both cards when they are in my hand, but the answer to the question is immediately apparent with Wild Cantor.

That leaves Leyline of the Meek, which is the only other card that affects the goldfish while also serving as a form of disruption by protecting the tokens from Goblin Sharpshooter, Pyrokinesis, Mogg Fanatic, Engineered Plague, Plague Spitter, Sandstorm and Rain of Blades and Time Walking thru' 2cc and 3cc removal. It doesn't have the mana accelerating/fixing abilities of Wild Cantor, but it's effect is dramatic. If I had to just goldfish this deck in a vacuum, Serum Powder and Wild Cantor would be the right call, but I can't fit 8 Blasts, 4 Shattering Spree and 4 Leyline of the Meek in the SB, so one of those cards has to go into the MD, and Leyline of the Meek is the card that goes into my MD because it affects the goldfish and "disrupts."

I'm pretty sure every deck "will" use MD answers to Empty the Warrens, so having a pre-emptive disruption card for the opponent that also just makes Empty the Warrens more efficient and synergizes with Serum Powder seems more efficient.

Edit: I just left off Blasts and Swarm since other than imprinting them for on color mana on Chrome Mox they have no affect on the goldfish

Edit Edit: I forgot Living Wish, but I'm not even going to go there since Living Wish is one super complex card to evaluate.

Also, the entire "statement basically said Serum Powder is the worst card in my deck" argument is complete bull shit. I built R/g Serum Belcher before CRET built CRETBelcher on TheManaDrain, and I wouldn't even think of playing the deck with out Serum Powder. People are just developing R/g Belcher ass backwards out of CRETBelcher in this thread.

Bovinious
06-26-2007, 10:05 PM
1) You can say you shouldn't do these things but the fact of the matter is sometimes you have to, no one would play Cantor/Wall and pass unless they had to, we can't all draw perfect hands every game...

2) 4 Sandstorm MD in Landstill, I'll let that one speak for itself I guess...and Echoing Decay too apparently...

Tabernacle in The Game and Cephalid Breakfast played? I'm not even sure what were discussing anymore here, niether of those decks are played often if ever. Last time I looked the Game used Innocent Blood/Cabal Therapy/Living Wish ---> K. Dead for a sac outlet but thats irrelevant because no one plays the Game. I guess there's some crazy European meta if you have to worry about that...

3) Yes I know the deck's core is 11 Wincons and 41 Mana Spells, and the last 8 vary. I guess its just a personal preference or the fact I dont need to worry about my opponents casting Echoing Decay or Sandstorm.

You were the one who said Serum Powder was "he best non win condition, non mana source in the deck", which says its worse than 52 other cards. While obviously this has to be true b/c the 52 cards are the core of the deck, I was merely stating that saying its inferior to those other 52 is not a good arguement for its inclusion because all cards considered in those last 8 slots would be "the best non win condition, non mana source in the deck" as they would be the ONLY non win condition, non mana sources.

BreathWeapon
06-27-2007, 01:53 AM
1) Fine, but the point stands.

2) I could argue that 4 Swords to Plowshares in U/g/w Threshold are inferior, because 4 Swords to Plowshares fails at addressing the threats in the metagame, and that 4 Pyroclasm in U/g/r Threshold are superior because they succeed at addressing the threats of the metagame. Removal are reactive cards that should be based off the threats the deck expects to face and removal that eliminates both Goblin Lackey and Empty the Warrens is clearly viable on that basis.

Gamekeeper uses Living Wish -> K.Dead as a sacrifice out let? WTF is K.Dead being used for over Phyrexian Tower or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? Cephalid Breakfast is going to see play, hell, any deck with Living Wish is going to play The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale if it can.

There's no explicit or implicit interpretation of "Serum Powder is the best non-win condition, non-mana source in the deck" that could lead the reader to assume that it's an argument against Serum Powder. Non-win condition, non-mana source just states the group of cards that Serum Powder is assigned to, and there's no reason to compare Serum Powder to those win conditions and mana sources because Serum Powder isn't competing for the same slots. You're misinterpreting the context of the statement, if I said "Morphling is the best non-permission, non-draw, non-mana source in mono blue control" does that mean that Morphling is worse than any of those other cards? Of course not, because there's no basis for comparison. Furthermore, I already stated that I SB out Seething Song for a set of Blasts, so I clearly value Serum Powder more than that mana source, even tho' the reasoning has nothing to do with a direct comparison between Seething Song and Serum Powder.

I'll lay it out, the first 4 cards in this deck are Serum Powder, it's that good.

Bovinious
06-27-2007, 02:22 AM
I think your right about STP yes its not so good, I'd rather run UGr thresh w/ Clasm SB because Meddling Mage is often too slow anyway and STP doesnt answer ETW. I guess the difference is Pyroclasm is much less narrow then all those instants that do 1 damage because Clasm isn't just used to kill ETW, it serves other purposes.

I've always seen Kjeldoran Dead ran in SB of the Game to sac Gamekeeper because that lets you do it that turn rather than waiting til upkeep on Tabernacle, and not mana burning yourself on Tower I guess, plus you can still use the Dead after playing your land for the turn (turn 2 Rit, gamekeeper, turn 3 wish, dead, win). None of this really matters though because no one plays the Game anyways.

I'm not saying its an argument against Powder, I'm just saying yours wasnt a good arguement. Saying its the best of a small subset of 8 cards isn't really meaningful. I do see how it can be interpreted as "Powder is the best thing to run other than mana/kill", but originally it didnt sound that way to me it sounded like you were saying its good but worse than everything else in the deck much like Cantor is, but it can be read that Serum Powder is the best at what it does (not make mana or win) which is I guess what you meant.

BreathWeapon
06-27-2007, 04:50 PM
I perfected Belcher last night,

"Back in Black"

4 Serum Powder
4 Street Wraith
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Unmask
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Dark Ritual, Spoils of the Vault and Unmask solve all of the deck's problems. Dark Ritual is an additional counter target based on the "rule of 3" for Force of Will and Daze and increases the average mana production of the 1/2 cc Rituals (not counting 2xRight of Flame). Spoils of the Vault is a tutor that can find either Empty the Warrens or Goblin Charblecher, reducing the over reliance on Empty the Warrens. Spoils of the Vault serves as an accelerant and storm generator with Dark Ritual, storm generator with Cabal Ritual, mana fixer and storm generator with Lotus Petal, mana fixer, storm generator and permanent mana source with Chrome Mox, an accelerant, mana fixer and storm generator with Lion's Eye Diamond and disruption with Unmask. Replacing Seething Song for Unmask protects Land Grant and eliminates losing games to counters at the 3cc choke point and mass removal.

Serum Powder reduces the size of the deck and the RFG cards give you information about what you can/can't Spoils of the Vault for, so the chances of losing to Spoils of the Vault are much lower than any other deck. On average, you actually have more acceleration than any other version of Goblin Charbelcher because you get to factor in Spoils of the Vault.

I have one other version of Belcher that could be stronger than this, and the mechanic it uses could revolutionize combo, but I need more time with it. I'm convinced that Serum Powder, Spoils of the Vault, Unmask and Dark Ritual are the corner stones of the Belcher deck tho'.

The one weakness the deck gained between going from a red to black base was going from 17 tier 0 mana produces and losing the mana fixing of Tinder Wall, but 13 tier 0 mana producers and the mana fixing of Spoils of the Vault is still acceptable within combo standards when Unmask is protecting them from Force of Will and the Spirit Guides are protecting them from Daze.

Street Wraith is just filler for Unmask and Chrome Mox that has a chance of turning into mana.

This is the fastest combo deck in the format, and it's favorable against both Threshold and Landstill (no bull shit). You can win with as few as 4 cards in your hand as long as your holding Spoils and LED.

emidln
06-27-2007, 05:20 PM
You are running 61 cards. This is going to cause problems with Spoils of the Vault and the percentages of having a win condition in hand after mulling.

Silverdragon
06-27-2007, 05:20 PM
Oh come on! You know the word "perfected" together with a list that has absolutely no results outside of your own testing (which can't be much when you just made it "last night") will only result in earning you a lot of flames. Especially as your deck is 61 cards.
It seems like you have a harder time getting the right colors than the original version that interestingly also played Dark Ritual.
How often do you Spoils yourself to death? How often do you mulligan into oblivion? How often do you hit your Bayou before Belcher is lethal?

I have one other version of Belcher that could be stronger than this, and the mechanic it uses could revolutionize combo, but I need more time with it. I'm convinced that Serum Powder, Spoils of the Vault, Unmask and Dark Ritual are the corner stones of the Belcher deck tho'.
Uhm ok...

All the negative criticism aside I really like how you were able to fit Unmask into the maindeck. This could make Belcher a lot stronger.

BreathWeapon
06-27-2007, 07:04 PM
Oh come on! You know the word "perfected" together with a list that has absolutely no results outside of your own testing (which can't be much when you just made it "last night") will only result in earning you a lot of flames. Especially as your deck is 61 cards.
It seems like you have a harder time getting the right colors than the original version that interestingly also played Dark Ritual.
How often do you Spoils yourself to death? How often do you mulligan into oblivion? How often do you hit your Bayou before Belcher is lethal?

Uhm ok...

All the negative criticism aside I really like how you were able to fit Unmask into the maindeck. This could make Belcher a lot stronger.

I didn't need to PT the list that much, I have 1000+ logged games with Belcher since Jan., it was apparent that Unmask, Spoils of the Vault and Dark Ritual solved all of the tactical problems while leaving strategic problems with the mana base and Tinder Wall.

Edit: This deck isn't new to me, because I've had similar versions since

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=31990.90

and I still use that final version - Infernal Tutor + Serum Powder and some alterations to the mana base,

Color screw aside, the deck mulligans so much less than CRET or R/g Belcher because Spoils of the Vault doesn't require LED, Seething Song or double Right of Flame to find a win condition (see Burning Wish) and it can serve as an accelerant and mana fixer. The number of times the game is lost to Spoils of the Vault are irrelevant compared to the number of times the game is won to Spoils of the Vault for being the best tutor for this deck, and between using Serum Powder to thin the deck and inform Spoils of the Vault on what to/not to Spoils for, you wont kill yourself that often.

Between Serum Powder, Land Grant and Spoils of the Vault I haven't hit the land so far.

The deck isn't 61 cards, it's more like 53 cards since Serum Powder and Street Wraith are "null space" in the deck. Feel free to cut a Street Wraith, I didn't even notice the list was 61 cards, I imagine it's because I forgot that moving the Empty the Warrens to the SB for Burning Wish is what freed up the land slot. The Street Wraith slot can be almost anything, because it's only there to support Unmask and Chrome Mox. Feel free to run Plunge into Darkness or whatever in that slot because I don't take it into consideration when goldfishing.

Unmask, Dark Ritual, Serum Powder and Spoils of the Vault are what break the deck in half, so I'm certain I'm on the right track. It's just a question of getting the mana base to co-operate. I think I've figured it out, but I need more time to be sure, because the implications are radical.

Bane of the Living
06-27-2007, 07:32 PM
1)
It's really not that strange for me, because I'm in Europe, and the European metagame is frankly better than the American metagame at playing combo decks in numbers (look at the T8's in Germany).


Ok Im looking.. Off Morphling this is the top 8 of the year so far..

Herxheim 01.06.2007
1. Survival
2. Gro
3. Gobs
4. Gobs
5. Landstill
6. Counter Burn
7. Pox
8. Life (WHAT A COMBO DECK!!)

Columbus 04.03.2007
1. Gobs
2. Boros
3. Thresh
4. Fish
5. Affinity
6. Deadguy
7. Iggy (COMBO!)
8. Mono Black Discard

Karlsruhe 24.02.2007
1. Boros
2. Red Gro
3. Life (AGAIN OMG!!)
4. Landstill
5. Landstill
6. Fish
7. Fish
8. Survival

Nijmegen 14.01.2007
1. Landstill
2. Deadguy
3. Affinity
4. Deadguy
5. Terrageddon
6. ?
7. Sligh
8. Terrageddon

Düsseldorf 06.01.2007
1. Gobs
2. Übermadness
3. Fish
4. Landstill
5. Übermadness
6. Gobs
7. Ichorid
8. Fish

So three out of fourty decks are combo.

As for your new list, it really seems like your development is running backwards. I dont feel the need to tell you why since everyone in this thread already agrees on about 54 cards in the deck. Your new build is off the wall and doesnt include Burning Wish. Spoils has always been terrible in the deck and it hasnt been till recently that the deck was able to aleviate the problem with better cards.

Your 'null' space at 61 cards isnt null when your adding cards over 60 to create the null. I dont understand your logic.

AnwarA101
06-27-2007, 08:54 PM
I perfected Belcher last night,

"Back in Black"

4 Serum Powder
4 Street Wraith
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Unmask
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond


I don't see why Black rituals are better than Red rituals. Cabal Ritual is the same as Desperate Ritual and while Dark Ritual is better than all of them that's probably a reason to include Dark Ritual, but probably not Cabal Ritual. Also if you want to play protection in this deck it seems that Pyroblast does almost the same thing but lets you play 12 Rituals instead of only 8.

Bovinious
06-27-2007, 08:58 PM
That list shouldn't even be in the CRET Belcher thread, this is just like Belcher circa 2004 with ETW and Wraith...

There are so many problems here, you cant support 4 Unmask and 4 Chrome Mox on 20 blacks cards that all actually want to cast/cycle. All this deck did was turn Belcher into BG rather than RG, Cabal Rit = Desperate rit, Dark rit = Rite of Flame, Spoils = Burning Wish, Unmask apparently for Seething Song. I don't think this is very smart though because this makes the Spirit Guides worse, Tinder Wall worse, and ETW harder to cast. I guess Spoils basically makes it like your running 8 Belcher 4 ETW rather than 4 Belcher 7 ETW, except sometimes youll have to cast Belcher and sit on it, and the life loss from Spoils can make it so people can actually kill you before you get the mana to activate Belcher. It seems to me that you fear ETW removal WAY too much, it seems like your trying to sacrifice some speed for protection with this deck which is a bad idea. If you go Unmask removing Black Card and miss, you just Hymned yourself and prolly have to wait to go off. Even if you hit, you still cant go off yet w/ 5 cards in hand, and if they are playing Counters they prolly have cantrips too in order to dig for more. Belcher is good because it FORCES them to have it in their starting hand or lose, and they still have to play it at the right time. Your deck is also much worse in topdeck mode if it does get stopped, 4 Powder 4 Unmask are dead topdecks, along with all the Spirit Guides and Tinder Walls that dont help you cast your mana spells.

Also do something about the 61 cards, its a huge double standard to want to run Powder and Wraith to play less cards but then play more than the min. total.

BreathWeapon
06-28-2007, 01:31 AM
@Bane of the Living,

http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/siegerdecks.htm

That should be more useful than Morphling.de if their database is still intact.

@Bovinius

That's an over simplification, the difference between Dark Ritual and Right of Flame and Spoils of the Vault and Burning Wish are tremendous, because Dark Ritual draws the Force of Will and Spoils of the Vault is a more efficient tutor for either win condition and can be used to fix mana, generate storm and accelerate. Seething Song is a god awful top deck, so replacing it with Unmask isn't a significant down grade, and Unmask prevents the deck from going into top deck mode in the first place. The deck can support Unmask and Chrome Mox because Unmask and Chrome Mox aren't RFGing the same cards to begin with and Unmask can be RFGed to Chrome Mox.

As I said, 61 cards was an over sight caused from replacing Burning Wish for Spoils of the Vault and returning the 4th Empty the Warrens to the MD, you can cut a Street Wraith because that card slot is only used as a place holder.

This shell is the right shell, it's the mana base that needs to be dealt with, and I think I've figured out how to do it. To be honest, this list was just intended as a segway into the next list that I'll post tomorrow, after all of the goldfishing is done. I think there's a legitimate reason to return to black that will be so obvious once you see the tech.

@Anwar101

Blasts don't protect against removal, I'll address the other points later.

Bovinious
06-28-2007, 01:57 AM
So Dark Ritual is good because it gets countered? I recognize 3 mana for 1 mana is good and Dark Rit is a good card so much so that original CRET splashed it but that statement made no sense. Spoils wouldnt need to fix mana if you werent playing black to begin with, Cabal Ritual is the same as desperate ritual and Rite of Flame is synonymous to Dark ritual, and is mre useful because it can actually be used to cast ETW, your win con, or a Wish to find and cast your win con. Unmask and Song are about equally bad topdecks but you run Powder as well for 8 bad topdecks, just seems like youd have a harder time coming back when you get answered or after Hymning yourself with Unmask. Mox will want to RFG a black card about half the time it looks like from ur list, since you want to be able to cast Dark Rit and apparently Spoils, 20 black cards just seems low to me for Unmask and Mox especially when you need those black cards to actually win the game. The manabase does need some kind of fixing if your going to stay in black but to fix Id just go back to RG.

I agree w/ Anwar in that Pyroblast just seems better than Unmask, ESP in your new list that apparently is scared to cast ETW and is willing to use Spoils to find Belcher. If your using Powder and Spoils to find Belcher I think you should be more worried about them countering your Belcher than them Sandstorming or whatever cards you fear your ETW tokens which you would rather not create. You could probably support the Pyroblasts if you put in Rite of Flame rather than Tinder Wall, added a Taiga, and possibly Wild Cantors. Something like -4 Wraith -4 Unmask -4 Tinder Wall +1 Taiga +2 Wild Cantor +4 Pyroblast +4 Rite of Flame, with the the last Wraith removed cutting to 60 cards. All of this seems like a lot of work just to cast Belcher a little bit more of the time but thats prolly the best way to do it.

BreathWeapon
06-28-2007, 04:21 PM
Here's an example,

Turn one Chrome Mox imprinting red card, Right of Flame, Desperate Ritual and now the opponent must Force of Will the Desperate Ritual or risk SG generating a 4th mana and casting Empty the Warrens.

Net loss, 2 cards and 3 storm.

Compare that to,

Turn one Chrome Mox imprinting black card, Dark Ritual "see above"

Net loss, 1 card and 2 storm.

Yes, Dark Ritual is the best ritual because of B for BBB, but it also affects the opponent's Force of Will options to serve as pseudo disruption. The reason this isn't the case in CRETBelcher is because the deck can't count on Dark Ritual with out losing a Wild Cantor or a Lotus Petal to cast it in the process.

Yes, Spoils of the Vault has to be used to fix mana sometimes, but other times it's a tutor for a win condition or an accelerant.

20 black cards is more than enough to support Unmask and Chrome Mox, AfFOWnity used 16 cards to support Force of Will and Chrome Mox, and this deck can just imprint Unmask to Chrome Mox or just use the Chrome Mox to imprint a Spirit Guide for permanent mana, a second win condition, a second Land Grant, a Spoils of the Vault or a Spirit Guide for permanent mana. Unmask is easier to support on the draw, but if need be the deck can pass the turn to fish for another black card against control. You also seem to be forgetting that the Blasts will cost the deck two cards to use as well, all of the mana is one time mana and the mana for the Blast had to be made up elsewhere.

I'll post the updated versions of the deck in another thread, because they are just too far gone from CRETBelcher or R/gBelcher to be in here. You can expect them to be up in the early hours of the morning.

zulander
06-28-2007, 04:27 PM
I haven't read all the posts so please exuse me if I'm asking something that has been discussed already. I've been playing belcher in vintage and I'm running 4 Pact of Negation in the main along with 3 goblin welders for the late game. Has anyone tested Pact in 1.5? It's amazing when you're comboing and your opponent disrupts you going off, you respond with pact if you know you can win on your next upkeep. Stack the pact trigger then in response tap 3 and belcher and win.

As for welder he's been amazing welding in an LED or belcher into play after you've activated an LED. How many times have you had an LED + 1 artifact and a belcher in your hand? With welder in play just use the LED then weld in belcher ftw. It's worked numerous times in vintage, I wouldn't know how well it would work in legacy though.

Just my $0.02

Nihil Credo
06-28-2007, 06:17 PM
Pact of Negation has horrible synergy with Empty the Warrens. It could be a consideration in Breathweapon's build, which lessens the focus on EtW, but that version already runs Unmask for pretty much the same effect, and with a lesser drawback.

Welder was seen in old Belcher lists (long before EtW was printed), until people noticed that in Legacy, a 1/1 Goblin with a powerful ability cannot seriously expect to untap alive.

Bovinious
06-28-2007, 11:41 PM
Pact of Negation seems like a really bad protection option, worse than Pyroblast and probably even Unmask. You cant use it if your planning on using an ETW kill and it loses you the game if you flip the land with Belcher.

I think Welder is better in Vintage because you have all the SoloMoxen and Sol Ring/Vault/Crypt etc. as permanent artifact mana sources to sac to Welder, that in addition to there being more creature removal in Legacy, so Welder likely wouldn't live to do his job if he would even have the opportunity to do it.

TestMonkey
06-30-2007, 04:34 AM
Could we shift discussing to optimizing the sideboard of Ewokslayer's posted deck? I find it to be the most consistantly explosive. Sure a misplaced FoW or early Pyroclasm can ruin your day but you got to remember we are playing combo. These things happen.

What is your guys' opinions on adding Life from the Loam to the sideboard? In my testing it's incredible in rebuilding your hand if your opponent hoses your first kill condition. Also, while highly unlikely, you theoretically can pump out a storm count of up to 10 by wishing for LotL with an EtW in your hand and choice mana acceleration in the yard.

How about Grapeshot for those last points of damage to your opponent's dome and random spot removal?

Jak
06-30-2007, 06:07 AM
How does Loam rebuild your hand? I think you are reading the card wrong. Just reread it and get back to us.

I do like the idea of putting a chain lightning in the board. I always hated getting to 17 or 18 and pulling a fucking land off the top.

Shugyosha
06-30-2007, 08:43 AM
I do like the idea of putting a chain lightning in the board. I always hated getting to 17 or 18 and pulling a fucking land off the top.

We already have Cave-In in the board for the last two damage. I used it several times and almost always I pitch a red card into it with no mana left (not even one for Chain Lightning).

For a finisher that takes more than two life Demonfire seems to be good. You can wish it on one turn and cast it later when you have more mana accel, or with LED mana (cracked in response to the wish). With hellbent its should be pretty bad news for counter heavy decks.

Another SB card I would like to test some time is the red Akroma. It comes in for game 2&3 (3 or 4 copies instead of Pyroblast) to give you another win condition against Fish, Threshold, etc. Sure its difficult to hardcast it but these decks usually have no answer to it and the card can't be discarded with Duress. If you decide to win another way the angel can always be imprinted into a chrome mox or pitched into Cave-In.

Hummingbird TG
06-30-2007, 08:57 AM
How often do you get 8 mana? From my limited testing, not many, but then again i might be wrong...

Bovinious
06-30-2007, 09:08 AM
I agree that we need to try and optimize the SB, I've seen a lot of variation within lists some of which being very puzzling.

I think there are about 12/13 cards that most people can agree belong SB, then the rest of the slots can vary:

4 Pyroblast (unless these are MD for some reason, in this case prolly REBs here)
4 Shattering Spree
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cave-In
1 Simplify

I've pretty much always seen those 13 ran, except sometimes not the IT.

So for the ohter two slots our options are:

Duress
Goblin War Strike
Hull Breach
Reverent Silence
Tranquility
Diminishing Returns
more REBs

I'm kind of partial to running Diminishing Returns and Hull Breach atm, but really am not sure about those last 2 slots, it may be just a personal preference.

Shugyosha
06-30-2007, 09:09 AM
How often do you get 8 mana?

That's the problem with Akroma. You have to build up a bit and multiple Rite of Flame help alot. When boarding it in I would definately board out other win conditions for it as every non-mana card is much more worse in the deck when trying to reach 8 mana instead of 4.

Bovinious
06-30-2007, 09:16 AM
You almost never get 8 mana, sometimes if you draw LED LED Wish you can but you can't even Wish for Akroma...seriously I'd much rather play Storm Entity than Akroma.

Bane of the Living
06-30-2007, 09:49 AM
You almost never get 8 mana, sometimes if you draw LED LED Wish you can but you can't even Wish for Akroma...seriously I'd much rather play Storm Entity than Akroma.

Maybe Im missing something here but isnt the point to play her morphed then flip her? Shes only 3 mana to play face down and a seething song away from a flip really.

Bovinious
06-30-2007, 09:55 AM
I wasn't aware why people were putting such an awful card in their SBs, but I heard people talking about 8 mana, I think the point was you could play it face down then morph it up later but also she was an uncounterable threat at 8 mana. Either way I'd play Storm Entity way before I'd run Akroma and I don't think I'd run Storm Entity.

Shugyosha
06-30-2007, 10:05 AM
Maybe Im missing something here but isnt the point to play her morphed then flip her? Shes only 3 mana to play face down and a seething song away from a flip really.

Akroma costs 6 to unmorph but you can use LED for it anyway.

Yes something like the following is possible:

5 cards:
Bayou -> Dark Ritual
LED
LED
Play Morph
Crack LED's -> unmorph

There alot of other possible routes but you can also hardcast it after 2-3 turns of set-up. LED's are also quite nice to pump the angel.

Sure the opponent can still counter your mana spells but he can do this with Belcher and EtW kills, too. In fact he can even counter the Belcher and EtW (via Stifle). Also the other hate boarded like Engineered Plague and Needle for example are not very useful against Akroma, delaying the kill for a turn or two at most.

Bovinious
06-30-2007, 10:18 AM
Thats what I was thinking, the only time Akroma can really be brought out quick is via a pair LEDs. Thing is I'd rather Burning Wish ---> Infernal Tutor and get either Belcher or ETW then, those options are just as susceptible to counters as Akroma because they can still Counter the morph. For your example the question I've gotta ask is why are you still running Bayou and Dark Ritual, but I guess thats another issue entirely.

Where did all this Red Akroma business come from? Are people siding out ETW for Akroma in the face of E. Plague? If thats the case, that E. Plague is that prominent for you, I'd suggest Storm Entity instead, itll often be a 6/6 or 7/7 Haste, which is usually a 3 turn clock, and also by 3-4 turns you may draw enough cards to cast a belcher or small ETW. I wouldn't really suggest this in general but if ETW tokens getting swept by E. Plague/Pyroclasm/watever I'd suggest Storm Entity rather than Akroma.

Shugyosha
06-30-2007, 10:55 AM
Where did all this Red Akroma business come from? Are people siding out ETW for Akroma in the face of E. Plague? If thats the case, that E. Plague is that prominent for you, I'd suggest Storm Entity instead, itll often be a 6/6 or 7/7 Haste, which is usually a 3 turn clock, and also by 3-4 turns you may draw enough cards to cast a belcher or small ETW.

Several posts earlier I proposed Akroma as a possible sideboard card instead of Pyroblasts. The purpose is to have another kill condition that can bounce most of the hate of decks like Fish and Grow. I would board it against decks that pack alot of counters only.
Nobody wants to play it just because of Engineered Plague and btw. Storm Entity is strictly inferior. It can be chump blocked you can sword it and it can be countered. Every BEB can kill the card as well as Engineered Explosives.

What I said regarding Engineered Plague is that it's another card that isn't useful against Akroma, as well as Pithing Needle, Explosives, Pyroclasm, Stifle, etc. Just to list some cards of the common hate you have to face at the moment.

Besides I never played the version with black but the Street Wraith version. I just tested the Akroma SB in the black version as this deck can shore up more mana with Dark Ritual. I feared that casting it is too difficult but it isn't. I still have to try it in the RG build.

Bovinious
06-30-2007, 11:07 AM
I really dont see how your going to get to 8 mana through a wall of counters, especially without Seething Song which is what you should be SBing out against decks with counters, it just begs to get countered. Also whats to stop them from just countering your face down? I'm not advocating Storm Entity over Akroma I think both suck but I'd probably try Storm Entity before Akroma.

By the way you can't say one is strictly worse than the other, they dont even function similarly at all theres no possible way you can say one is strictly better, CRET Belcher even proves you cant say REB is strictly better than Pyroblast because this is one of the few decks where you actually want to be able to waste the 'Blast. Just be careful with statements like that in the future.

strom
06-30-2007, 12:20 PM
I went to a little tourney nearby my hometown.
4 Rounds matchrecord 3-1.

The list I ran:

// Lands
1 [B] Taiga
1 [B] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
4 [GP] Wild Cantor
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [MI] Dark Ritual
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
3 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 4 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [PT] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [OD] Simplify
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm

I am pretty happy with the current list. I have played and tested the deck since its earlier days without the boost of EtW.
I have done a lot of testing with different versions especially with Wraith but I found it to be inferior to Dark Ritual.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.

1. Round vs. TheRock with R-Splash for Pyroclasm

He won the die roll (which is really bad with this deck) but didnt to anyhing first round. I manged to get 10 Gobs into play. I could only attack once, because he dropped one of his sweepers (he had Deed, Pyroclasm and EE mainbord).

Second Game (no sideboarding by me) I killed him with an ETW for 12 gobs 1st round.

Third Game I kept a good hand with two win-conditions. Unfortunately my next two cards off of the top where Wish and another belcher. He made double Duress and eventually won.

2. Round vs. B/U-Control (I saw Hippie,Duress,Mana Leak,Hmyn to Tourach..)

He won the die roll and started with a first round hippie. Not bad.
I managed to drop a belcher 1st round along with Land Grant and Chrome Mox.My hand was emtpy and all I needed was another mana source.GG

Second Game (I sided swarms and Pyros) he got the nuts with first turn Duress and Hymn. I coudnt recover and he was able to play a specter. There was no way to win this game.

Third Game I was allowed to start and played a first turn belcher. He played a handdisruption spell and all I could do on my 2nd turn was playing a Xantid Swarm (in play: Bayou and belcher), no cards left in hand. He played a Specter. I drew Tinder Wall off the top attacked with Swarm and played the wall second mainphase leaving me with enough mana to kil him next turn and so I did (he told me, he had a Mana Leak in hand, so Xantid Swarm was pretty good here).

3. Round vs. Burn

I won the die roll (yeah) and kept a nice hand with a huge ETW. Too fast for him..

Second Game he started with Lava Spike. My first turn was pretty broken and I managed to put 16 Gobs into play. He played some burn next turn, so I attacked with my army. Third turn he manegd to play Flamebreak (leaving him at 1 life). I wasn't able to recover fast enough and so got killed by some Burn.

Third game I started and killed him with Belcher easily.

4. Round vs. Vial Goblins

Not much to tell. Two times I killed him via EtW first game and via belcher second game. He put down a pillar second game but I only took 6 damage and eventually belched him to death.

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 01:12 PM
Basic SBing is to have up to 8 Blasts, 4 Blasts in the MD free up 4 slots in the SB, and from there 4 Shattering Spree to deal with Chalice of the Void on the draw. After that, all that I think the SB "needs" is Empty the Warrens, Diminishing Returns and Reverent Silence/Simplify. People who MD Blasts tend to fill in those slots with a lot of other Wish targets, but most of them tend to be superflous in actual game play.

I'm back to just the "CRET list" - Dark Ritual for Serum Powder and - Bayou for the missing Tinder Wall and it's just too consistent to give up on. I'll post the Belcher/b list I came up with in another thread, people are going to either love it or hate it after they see it.

ClearSkies
06-30-2007, 04:27 PM
I went to a little tournament in my town too. I played against quite a few control decks. I brought this deck to the tournament because no one will expect it. However, I ran to a few problems.

As for the decklist, the mainboard is the same as the one in SCG article.

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
2 Taiga
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Street Wraith
4 Rites of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Tinder Wall
3 Pyroblast


My Sideboard isn't the same though.

1x Simplify
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Dimished Returns
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Duress
1x Cave-In
1x Infernal Tutor

4x Shattering Spree
3x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroblast

I often found that the black version increases my chances to have a fail activation because Bayou doesn't double the damage. The Wraith version seemed to fetch me the acceleration without having to need Dark Ritual as more accleration.


Record 3-2

Details of Rounds in spoiler

Round 1 -> Complete goldfish

Round 2 -> U/G Madness, no FoW
Complete goldfish

Round 3 -> W/U Control
G1: Lost to game error. (Forgot to fix my SB)
G2: Won in 3rd turn with Belcher, no problems, He didn't SB

G3: This is the part I have problems with. He managed to get Chill in turn 2 play, and I couldn't really get out of it. My blasts were just sitting in my hand, and having only enough mana to blast every other turn wasn't fast enough before I died to 1/1 from decree.

Round 4 -> Deadguy Ale type deck
G1: 2nd Turn win

G2: His massive discard and later on chalice of the void for zero screwed me over really badly. I just couldn't get back into the game.

G3: It was the same as Game 2. However, this time, I won the game because I threw down my LEDs and artifact acceleration in play, and wished for diminishing returns for 24 goblins.

I really think that Diminishing Returns is a good wish target for this deck. Might need more testing though. =/

Round 5 -> Monoblue Control
G1: Winning with 6 goblins that was put down on turn one...

G2: This was one of those wierd games. This was my hand:

Red Spirit Guide, Pyroblast, 3x Rite of Flames, Belcher, and 2x Land grant.
(I drew a Red Spirit Guide during my first turn since I played first)

He went first, and played island. I tried going off, thinking I had backup, only to find that he brainstormed into his 2nd FoW. -_-

Later on, he managed to play Chill when I had no blast in my hand. I couldn't get around it until very later with wishing for Simiplify.

I managed to EtW with 4 storm and then EtW with 5 storm. Before I could attack, he played Leyline of Singularity, and another Chill.

G3: I managed to get Belcher out for a very long time, but no mana to activated it immediately. After I got Belcher out, he played Chill. I tried to activate it 5 times. 4 times, I was Trickbinded, and 5th time was a failed activation, and I died to a Morphling.

The main point was that this deck seem to have alot of trouble fightning against Chill and Leyline of the Void.

Are there better ways for Belcher to fight against problematic enchantments? Would sideboarding Krosan Grip be a good idea or a bad idea?

Even with 11 "win" conditions, I feel that there isn't enough ways to win. Somehow, I want to stick like 1 copy of Tendrils in SB or Mainboard and/or put Infernal Tutors.

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 06:16 PM
Assuming 8 Blasts, Simian Spirit Guide has a chance to counter the Chill on the opponent's turn, but I don't see how the opponent can cast Chill before you win unless your are Time Walking him into his turn with Tinder Wall (and even then you can sacrifice Tinder Wall for RR to counter the Chill).

I've seen Leyline of Singularity and Chill used in AfFOWnity, where both of the cards are sensible because Leyline of Singularity cheats AfFOWnity's blue count and Chill can be accelerated, and there I ended up trying 4 Referent Silence in the board for AfFOWnity and Enchantress.

Leyline of Singularity is garbage, if your opponent plays Leyling of Singularity then you can either go for Diminishing Returns or just use one of the 8 Blasts to remove it. You would have lost to any removal spell in that position, so it really wasn't Leyline of Singularity that you lost to.

If you feel threat light, it's because the deck mulligans with out a win condition every 5 hands. I strongly recommend Serum Powder because of this.

TestMonkey
07-16-2007, 04:46 AM
Am I correct in assuming that this decks has been pretty much optimized? It's been two weeks since the last post in this thread although many other threads seem to have marked this deck as a weapon of the apocalypse. The roiginal seems to still be the strongest.

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

SB
1 Cave-In
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
2 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Simplify
1 ???
1 ???

The only thing in question seems to be the last two slots in the sideboard. These last two slots seem to be metagame slots. Arguments have being made for:

Cabal Therapy
Duress
Goblin War Strike
Grapeshot
Hull Breach
Regrowth
Tendrils of Agony

thebadmagicplayer
07-16-2007, 11:39 AM
hi, I was just wondering what the cret in cret belcher stands for?

NANTUKO_SHADY
07-16-2007, 02:08 PM
hi, I was just wondering what the cret in cret belcher stands for?


CRET is the name of the team which introduced this deck list I believe. A few people from Team CRET ran it at some tourney and all of them did really well with it I think.




SB
1 Cave-In
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
2 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Simplify
1 ???
1 ???




In regards to your SB, why run both Pyroclasm AND Cave-In? To start, you will rarely find yourself Wishing for either Pyroclasm or Cave-In, and I see almost no occassions will you will B-Wish for both of them in the same game. I think Cave-In is truely better because you can RFG a red card rather than have to pay two mana that you might be short on. I suggest you take out the Pyroclasm and replace it with a 5th blast, and then run Regrowth and Tendrils of Agony as your last two wish spots. I questioned Tendrils at first, but after an explanation, it really makes sense to be in there just in case.

Bovinious
07-16-2007, 02:21 PM
I think CRET stands for Charles' Rear Entry, part Two or something like that, but yeah its based on Team CRET who first did well with the deck.

My sideboard is the following, I made more room in it by MDing 4 Pyroblast over Cantors:

1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Simplify
1 Duress
1 Pyroclasm
4 Shattering Spree
1 Cave-In
1 Diminishing Returns
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Hull Breach

I'm not really seeing the point of Regrowth or Tendrils in the board, especially since I've cut black from the deck but maybe if I was running black I'd run a Tendrils.

NANTUKO_SHADY
07-16-2007, 11:46 PM
I'm not really seeing the point of Regrowth or Tendrils in the board, especially since I've cut black from the deck but maybe if I was running black I'd run a Tendrils.

I don't run black either. Bayou is pretty damn awful. If I were to even run two lands, it would be two Taigas. Anyways, Tendrils is still O.K. in the board even with no maindeck Bayou or Dark Rit. Generally speaking, you are never going to cast Tendrils without the use of LED anyways, so getting BB shouldn't be too hard tough of a feat. I also didn't like Tendrils at first, but Ewokslayer explained to me it is a Wish target for after they deal with an initial ETW onslaught. If you bash them for a bunch then they wipe the board, then Tendrils can serve as a nice mid-game finisher. If they can survive one wave of Goblins, chances are they will be able to withstand another one some turns later.

Bovinious
07-16-2007, 11:54 PM
I agree on Bayou/black, if I ran another land I'd run a 2nd Taiga, Bayou for the loss. I like the option of Diminishing Returns SB when you have an LED, usually itll let you get another Belcher/ETW but I can see where wishing for a lethal Tendrils would be better than risking it on 7 random cards, esp. if theres a Plague on the table and ETW would be no good. I'll try one in place of either Duress, Hull Breach, or a REB.

thebadmagicplayer
07-17-2007, 01:44 PM
i'm thinking of picking this deck up for competitive play. can one of you explain why some of the wish targets like duress are in the sb. also when do you side in shattering spree, what do you take out for them, and what do you ageinst decks like stax, aluren, the mirror, land still, hanni fish, and fairy stompy?

the list I plan to run is a one land varient of G/R cret belcher. any info on your side board choices will be helpfull since i don't know what about a third of it is doing there

NANTUKO_SHADY
07-17-2007, 02:15 PM
i'm thinking of picking this deck up for competitive play. can one of you explain why some of the wish targets like duress are in the sb. also when do you side in shattering spree, what do you take out for them, and what do you ageinst decks like stax, aluren, the mirror, land still, hanni fish, and fairy stompy?

the list I plan to run is a one land varient of G/R cret belcher. any info on your side board choices will be helpfull since i don't know what about a third of it is doing there


Shattering Spree is there to take out decks that run Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, maybe Null Rod?? etc. Pretty much any pesky artifact that gets in the way of you comboing out are the targets for Shattering Spree. I board out 1x Street Wraith, 1x Wild Cantor, and 1x Tinderwall usually for the 3x Shattering Spree. You want to leave one in teh board so you can Burning Wish for one if you need it. In the mirror, my suggestion would be to win the die roll and try to go with the Belcher kill if you have the option. ETW can sometimes be bad in the mirror, as your opponent just either Belcher you out, or Burning Wishes for Cave-in and then wipes the board and combo's out next turn.

I'll now try to explain some SB choices.

*Empty the Warrens= DUH. It makes Burning Wish a win condition
*Shattering Spree= Read^
*Infernal Tutor= A nice wish target when you have excessive mana and you can abuse Hellbent with LED.
*Simplify= Gets rid of Engineered Plague and random other stupid annoying enchantments that may piss you off.
*Cave-In= Deals with Meddling Mage and opposing Goblin Tokens
*4x Pyroblast/1x REB= Relevant cards against your toughest matchups
*Tendrils of Agony= A nice mid-game Wish target after your opponent survives an initial onslaught of Goblins.
*Regrowth= Helps recover and setup for a second Combo attempt


That is my board, but some people like Goblin War Strike which speeds up the kill by a turn. Some also use Storm Entity, which I am not that fond of. It really varies. Hope I could be of help.

Bovinious
07-18-2007, 12:03 AM
any info on your side board choices will be helpfull since i don't know what about a third of it is doing there

Here are explanations of my current SB (4 Pyroblast MD):

1 Empty the Warrens - Win Con, needs to be here
1 Infernal Tutor - ups storm count if you have extra mana or helps you turn a Burning Wish into a Belcher if you have a LOT of extra mana (2 LEDs)
1 Simplify - kills a random E. Plague/Confinement/watever
1 Tendrils of Agony - Mid game kill spell if your horde of goblins is stopped
1 Pyroclasm - sweeper for gobs/ETW if you have spare mana
4 Shattering Spree - simply amazing, kills chalice, 3sphere, sphere of resistance, needle, cant be countered by chalice or otherwise if replicated
1 Cave-In - sweeper for gobs/ETW if you dont have spare mana
1 Diminishing Returns - helps build towards a 20+ goblin ETW or get to a Belcher if you are in the face of hate
2 Red Elemental Blast - vs. counters (in addition to 4 Pyroblast MD)
1 Goblin War Strike - helps ETW kill a turn faster if you have an extra wish and mana, can beat the hate by a turn sometimes
1 Hull Breach - if you have to kill an enchantment and they have more than 1 (AKA Simplify wont work), or if there is an artifact AND enchantment in your way.

I usually SB out 3 Pyroblasts for 3 Shattering Spree (leaving one in the board to wish for) if I'm playing against non-blue and artifacts, I would probably side out 4 Seething Song 1 Tinder Wall for 3 Shattering Spree 2 REB if I was against blue and artifacts, the rest is the wishboard.

D-Bird
07-20-2007, 03:46 AM
First of all, sorry for my bad english.

I´m building an CRET belcher deck so i am looking through many forums for informations. I only goldfished with my deck so i have no experience with any matchups. Because of this point i´m very unsure with the sidebord. My actually question ist, why using REBs/Pyroblasts over Duress (when B is played)? I read somthing about using simian spirit guide to counter but i don´t think that i can trust to have both cards in hand when needed. Also i think it´s bad to need one mana more in the comboturn. Duress can be played a turn before so the mana dosen´t care. Ok, this is a lost of a turn, but i can still cast it in the comboturn to have the same effekt then REB. The only thing that comes in my mind is the cost auf B. Is it the reason to play REB over Duress? Is the B the problem?

Sorry that i ask a so stupid questen. If i would test the deck in an tournament so i would know the anser, but i would like to be prepared befor the tournament, not after :smile:

Eeeeks... is this bad english... sorry again.

D-Bird

Slay
07-21-2007, 03:17 PM
Duress costs a black, and doesn't answer Meddling Mage. Those are enough to make it suck. In a different deck/meta, it could be really really good.
-Slay

Goaswerfraiejen
07-21-2007, 09:33 PM
Duress costs a black, and doesn't answer Meddling Mage. Those are enough to make it suck. In a different deck/meta, it could be really really good.
-Slay

On the other hand, it takes Sandstorm, Pithing Needle, and Engineered Explosives, which Pyroclasm can't. Tough choice, really, and it ultimately comes down to which combo is most in need of protection. Perhaps Belcher, as you say, since it's harder to answer (especially without blue, or access to two free counters).

Elfrago
08-02-2007, 04:40 AM
What about a single Trash for Treasure in the SB? It could be useful to recur a countered belcher and you can play it with the LED mana.

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-02-2007, 10:41 AM
What about a single Trash for Treasure in the SB? It could be useful to recur a countered belcher and you can play it with the LED mana.


Um... are you sure you can do that? It's an ADDITIONAL cost to sac an artifact. So you can't cast Trash For Treasure and in response sac LED to both add 3 mana AND cover the saccing cost for TFT. That's like sayiing "well my opponent casted Innocent Blood while I have Pile Driver and Fanatic out and I'll choose to sac Fanatic to Innocent Blood but in response I'll ping you for 1." You would still have to sac the Pile Driver then in that situation. If you have say a Chrome Mox or some other artifact out, then it would work. You would just sac the Chrome Mox as part of the cost, then while TFT is on the stack, THEN sac LED to get your 3 mana.

Elfrago
08-02-2007, 10:43 AM
Um... are you sure you can do that? It's an ADDITIONAL cost to sac an artifact. So you can't cast Trash For Treasure and in response sac LED to both add 3 mana AND cover the saccing cost for TFT. That's like sayiing "well my opponent casted Innocent Blood while I have Pile Driver and Fanatic out and I'll choose to sac Fanatic to Innocent Blood but in response I'll ping you for 1." You would still have to sac the Pile Driver then in that situation. If you have say a Chrome Mox or some artifact out, then it would work. You would just sac the Chrome Mox as part of the cost, then while TFT is on the stack, THEN sac LED to get your 3 mana.

Of course you LED and another artefact.
Still it could be useful.

Bryant Cook
08-02-2007, 11:13 AM
I'm surprised people aren't running Diminishing Returns, Bonivious seems to be the only one. You should especially be playing it if you're playing Wild Cantor, no reason not to. You have means of hardcasting it (meaning: not with Lion's Eye Diamond), and easy ways to cast it (meaning: with Lion's Eye Diamond). Don't be afraid to take from other combo, it's what I do with TES. I saw Belcher running Goblin War Strike and stole that and started testing it, I saw SI running draw 4's so I tested one as a wish target. Try some new things out, you may even like some of them.

Lone Signal
08-02-2007, 11:48 AM
I could never figure out what the appropriate situation is for wishing for Returns. All it seems to do is to inflate the storm count some more (and a lot of the times that is overkill, on top of that sometimes you run into an all-mana hand leaving you stuck), or if you know your opponent has ETW hate and need to dig out the Belcher (but then again you can just wish for tutor...)

I tried wishing for it sometimes in testing, but results weren't really awe-inspiring. In real games I've never wished for it.

Tacosnape
08-02-2007, 02:39 PM
I could never figure out what the appropriate situation is for wishing for Returns. All it seems to do is to inflate the storm count some more (and a lot of the times that is overkill, on top of that sometimes you run into an all-mana hand leaving you stuck), or if you know your opponent has ETW hate and need to dig out the Belcher (but then again you can just wish for tutor...)

I tried wishing for it sometimes in testing, but results weren't really awe-inspiring. In real games I've never wished for it.

I like it on hands where my Empty The Warrens would be less than inspiring. Like, just for S&G, I goldfished a few hands on MWS until I came up with this hand, on opening hand #4.

Take a random opening hand like this, which isn't too uncommon:

Taiga
Burning Wish
Burning Wish
Lion's Eye Diamond
Elvish Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide
Rite of Flame

If you go through the motions to Empty The Warrens here, you're only going to get 8 tokens (Rite, LED, Wish, ETW.) 8 might not be enough to kill here.

Now you -could- open with Taiga, SSG, Burning Wish here, grabbing whatever floats your boat, preparing to launch into ETW next turn. Or you could go through the Rite/LED/Wish motions and grab Diminishing Returns, launching you into a new hand. The hand it launched me into was:

Land Grant
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Empty The Warrens
Tinder Wall
Goblin Charbelcher
Chrome Mox

Not bad at all. From this point, using my floating Red, I could either continue the storm count here (Mox-5, Tinder Wall-6, Desperate Rit-7, Seething Song-8, ETW-9 for 18 Tokens), or I could go for the Belcher (though I'd be one mana short of activating it that turn.) Here I'd imprint the Grant on the Mox, Desperate Rit, Seething Song, Belcher. Next turn the Tinder Wall would allow me the 3 mana to activate it.

So to -me-, Diminishing Returns is there to help smooth out hands with lots of mana but without a lot of spells.

Also, say you hit a Belcher mirror. Your opponent goes first and manages ETW for 12. Your hand after you draw is:

Land Grant
Rite of Flame
Tinder Wall
Lotus Petal
Simian Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide
Burning Wish
Lion's Eye Diamond

Conventional logic here goes Land Grant for Taiga, ESG, Burning Wish for Cave-In, pitch SSG to Cave-In. You can also ETW for 14, giving yourself a slight edge. Diminishing Returns, however, gives you the option to make an interesting gamble: You can cast it hoping to get the Belcher and kill your opponent right off.

BreathWeapon
08-02-2007, 04:02 PM
The most important thing about Diminishing Returns is that it forces the opponent to discard and redraw his hand, while increasing the storm count to 10+. Either the opponent doesn't draw another answer for Empty the Warrens, Empty the Warrens is too fast for their answer or you draw Goblin Charbelcher. It's also the best Wish target after an opponent has countered the rest of the deck's acceleration or threats and the deck needs to get back into the game with limited resources. Empty the Warrens for six in the mid game is laughable, but a Diminishing Returns can win the game on the spot.

Next to Empty the Warrens, Diminishing Returns is the best "business" card in the SB.

Reagens
08-03-2007, 10:52 AM
You must be kidding.
When I tested the R-G-B version I had quite some difficulties from time to time reaching 1 single black mana. And now you are seriously considering this? I have no possible way of fitting such a narrow answer in my sideboard. The only reliable way of reaching double blue is via LED which doesn't happen often enough to have dimnishing in your wish board.
I think if your opponent storms for X tokens, you have a more dependable answer with pyroclasm or something.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-03-2007, 11:39 AM
Not bad at all. From this point, using my floating Red, I could either continue the storm count here (Mox-5, Tinder Wall-6, Desperate Rit-7, Seething Song-8, ETW-9 for 18 Tokens), or I could go for the Belcher (though I'd be one mana short of activating it that turn.) Here I'd imprint the Grant on the Mox, Desperate Rit, Seething Song, Belcher. Next turn the Tinder Wall would allow me the 3 mana to activate it.

What version of Belcher are you running here? With CRET Belcher/2 Land Belcher, you'd land grant for the Bayou and remove the ETW for the mox imprint, next turn you drop the Bayou and have 0 chance of hitting a land, anmd in cast of a stifle you can go for the Belch next turn due to 3 permanent mana sources as opposed to 2 with the tinder sac.


You must be kidding.
When I tested the R-G-B version I had quite some difficulties from time to time reaching 1 single black mana. And now you are seriously considering this? I have no possible way of fitting such a narrow answer in my sideboard. The only reliable way of reaching double blue is via LED which doesn't happen often enough to have dimnishing in your wish board.
I think if your opponent storms for X tokens, you have a more dependable answer with pyroclasm or something.

I can't imagine too many scenarios where you wish WITHOUT an LED on the table. Generally you need the LED to help with mana for an ETW and to up the storm count.

Also Diminishing in the sideboard is more of a great when you have the chance type of card. It helps a lot when you have a hand with wish that wont give you a lot of storm, generally one with a lot of guides and/or moxen. So it dramatically increases your likelihood of going off on turn 1 with an otherwise subpar hand.

Reagens
08-03-2007, 01:38 PM
So what you are implying is that you need a LED to go off succesfully anyway?
I do not agree. I have had plenty of hands with 3 red rituals and 1 random spell going into empty the warrens turn 1.
Do you also try this play when you don't know what you're facing? You'll see a lot more force of wills coming your way in that case. Diminishing returns almost always burns up all your mana so they generally have to counter one accelerant then...

BreathWeapon
08-05-2007, 04:02 PM
So what you are implying is that you need a LED to go off succesfully anyway?
I do not agree. I have had plenty of hands with 3 red rituals and 1 random spell going into empty the warrens turn 1.
Do you also try this play when you don't know what you're facing? You'll see a lot more force of wills coming your way in that case. Diminishing returns almost always burns up all your mana so they generally have to counter one accelerant then...

If you walk into Force of Will on the play, you're going to lose the game any way. If you draw them into a Force of Will on the play, you've got floating mana, Land Grant->Taiga and Chrome Mox generating card advantage to off set it. Using Diminishing Returns is hand dependent, but if you do use it, you shouldn't be afraid of drawing them into a Force of Will. I'd definitely try to avoid using it on the draw tho', because drawing them into Force of Will, Stifle and Daze is a little much.

You really want Diminishing Returns in your SB, 1 SB card for another out isn't asking a whole lot, and Infernal Tutor is garbage any way.

Shugyosha
08-05-2007, 06:26 PM
You really want Diminishing Returns in your SB, 1 SB card for another out isn't asking a whole lot, and Infernal Tutor is garbage any way.

At least Infernal Tutor is reliable and versatile in contrast to Diminishing Returns which is always a gamble.

But I don't see them in the same slot anyways. Tutor is a precise tool to get the job done: Upping stormcount slightly but reliable, finding a Belcher when EtW cannot be used.

Returns is for more desperate situations or shitty hands when you would loose anyways without it and can pull off a win with it.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-06-2007, 09:40 AM
So what you are implying is that you need a LED to go off succesfully anyway?
I do not agree. I have had plenty of hands with 3 red rituals and 1 random spell going into empty the warrens turn 1.
Do you also try this play when you don't know what you're facing? You'll see a lot more force of wills coming your way in that case. Diminishing returns almost always burns up all your mana so they generally have to counter one accelerant then...


No. I'm saying that LED is very common in Wish situations because you tend to need the mana it provides. If I look at a hand with Burning Wish I'm also hoping to see LED, if not it's pretty likely I've gotta reshuffle. You generally need an LED for a BW>IT combo anyways, so being dependent on the same card combo for DR isn't exactly far fetched.

As for the FoW, if you're playing a deck with FoW they've probably mulled into it anyways and in that case you're probably boned no matter what you do with Belcher. Also with only 4 Force of Wills possible in the deck you have greater chance of them NOT drawing Force/blue card off of DR than them drawing it. Who knows maybe they're a bad enough player that they'd be willing to risk drawing into another one, or you fizzling on your combo with DR and not counter it.

Knuckles29
08-10-2007, 08:56 AM
what does your wishboard look like if it has returns?

I am hoping for:

Card - Reason
Card - reason
etc.

The only reason I ask is taht I am running a similar list to a german player that top 8'd. It has 2 main deck Rituals and 2 Infernal Tutors and 1 in board. They are the only non R/G cards besides the artifacts. My slots are so tight due to the Xantid Swarms and already large Wish targets. I have the 4 Spree, 4 Swarm and then 7 1-ofs; and I can't imagine compedatively swaying from that for such a large gamble.

Reagens
08-10-2007, 09:26 AM
Also, say you hit a Belcher mirror. Your opponent goes first and manages ETW for 12. Your hand after you draw is:

Land Grant
Rite of Flame
Tinder Wall
Lotus Petal
Simian Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide
Burning Wish
Lion's Eye Diamond

Conventional logic here goes Land Grant for Taiga, ESG, Burning Wish for Cave-In, pitch SSG to Cave-In. You can also ETW for 14, giving yourself a slight edge. Diminishing Returns, however, gives you the option to make an interesting gamble: You can cast it hoping to get the Belcher and kill your opponent right off.

Or get stuck casting X tokens and your opponent with a full hand...
Or get stuck not drawing a kill condition and fizzle. While looking at 12 tokens...


No. I'm saying that LED is very common in Wish situations because you tend to need the mana it provides. If I look at a hand with Burning Wish I'm also hoping to see LED, if not it's pretty likely I've gotta reshuffle. You generally need an LED for a BW>IT combo anyways, so being dependent on the same card combo for DR isn't exactly far fetched.




Diminishing returns will always be a gamble whereas the result of your infernal tutor will always be predictable. Who claims you have to have an empty hand anyway to be able to use it? You can tutor up an extra accelerant for upping the storm count for example.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-10-2007, 11:07 AM
what does your wishboard look like if it has returns?

I am hoping for:

Card - Reason
Card - reason
etc.

The only reason I ask is taht I am running a similar list to a german player that top 8'd. It has 2 main deck Rituals and 2 Infernal Tutors and 1 in board. They are the only non R/G cards besides the artifacts. My slots are so tight due to the Xantid Swarms and already large Wish targets. I have the 4 Spree, 4 Swarm and then 7 1-ofs; and I can't imagine compedatively swaying from that for such a large gamble.

1 Empty The Warrens - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Diminishing Returns - Engine
1 Land Grant - Helps me win with Belcher or a way to get mana for a Dark Rit
1 Infernal Tutor - Engine
1 Tendrils Of Agony - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Hull Breach - Control Help
1 Shattering Spree - Control Help
1 Goblin War Strike - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Pyroclasm - Creature Control
3 Pyroblasts - Control Help
3 Xantid Swarm - Control Help


I keep mixing the 6 slots that Xantid and Pyroblast occupy. Haven't 100% settled on which cards to run to really help me out.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-10-2007, 11:10 AM
Or get stuck casting X tokens and your opponent with a full hand...
Or get stuck not drawing a kill condition and fizzle. While looking at 12 tokens...





Diminishing returns will always be a gamble whereas the result of your infernal tutor will always be predictable. Who claims you have to have an empty hand anyway to be able to use it? You can tutor up an extra accelerant for upping the storm count for example.


There are situations where you need to win out on a turn and goblin tokens just wont help. Diminishing Returns can be your ace in the hole here. Sure it's a gamble but sometimes you need to take risks.

And sure you can grab a 2nd LED or another Dark Rit or something but most times I need to use it to grab a win condition.

SillyMetalGAT
08-10-2007, 12:30 PM
what does your wishboard look like if it has returns?

I am hoping for:

Card - Reason
Card - reason
etc.

The only reason I ask is taht I am running a similar list to a german player that top 8'd. It has 2 main deck Rituals and 2 Infernal Tutors and 1 in board. They are the only non R/G cards besides the artifacts. My slots are so tight due to the Xantid Swarms and already large Wish targets. I have the 4 Spree, 4 Swarm and then 7 1-ofs; and I can't imagine compedatively swaying from that for such a large gamble.


1 Empty The Warrens- Wish Kill Condition
1 Simplify- Enchantment Kill
1 Diminishing Returns- Helps you in a dead situation hand. Hands with acceleration + LED + Wish into a D. Returns is always a good play.
1 Cave-In- Kills Goblins and Zombies.... sounds good to me.
4 Shattering Spree- Theres a lot of Stax, Needles, and other nasty artifacts in my meta... This card is just plan amazing as an answer.
4 REB
3 Pyroblast- I use these game 2 if I see almost any Blue. It helps a lot. Its also pretty good with Diminishing Returns if your opponent is playing FoW.

It does pretty good for me.

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-10-2007, 02:20 PM
1 Empty The Warrens - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Diminishing Returns - Engine
1 Land Grant - Helps me win with Belcher or a way to get mana for a Dark Rit
1 Infernal Tutor - Engine
1 Tendrils Of Agony - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Hull Breach - Control Help
1 Shattering Spree - Control Help
1 Goblin War Strike - Wish Target Kill Con
1 Pyroclasm - Creature Control
3 Pyroblasts - Control Help
3 Xantid Swarm - Control Help


I keep mixing the 6 slots that Xantid and Pyroblast occupy. Haven't 100% settled on which cards to run to really help me out.



Wow.... your sideboard is kind of weird. Land Grant in the sb!?!? If you are ever Burning Wishing for that, chances are you are in a bad position. Also, have you tried Cave-In over Pyroclasm? It is much easier to cast. Also, it looks like you have an AWFUL matchup against Stax variants and decks packing Chalice. You should up your Shattering Spree count because it is retarded, and cut the Hull Breach for a Simplify. IDK, your board just seems kind of all over the place.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-10-2007, 03:10 PM
Wow.... your sideboard is kind of weird. Land Grant in the sb!?!? If you are ever Burning Wishing for that, chances are you are in a bad position. Also, have you tried Cave-In over Pyroclasm? It is much easier to cast. Also, it looks like you have an AWFUL matchup against Stax variants and decks packing Chalice. You should up your Shattering Spree count because it is retarded, and cut the Hull Breach for a Simplify. IDK, your board just seems kind of all over the place.

Land Grant is awesome in the SB. Ever have those hands where you have a Burning Wish and a Belcher? I run 2 land Belcher and it's always great to be able to wish for a Bayou, I only lose 1 mana through it and I get that card out of my deck for the belch.

And I don't seem to find myself in the position of having 3 red cards in my hand as much as the ability to get the appropriate mana.

Shattering Spree is good and something I've been toying with to get another in the deck.

TestMonkey
08-11-2007, 02:39 AM
Crack the Earth appears to be a viable sideboard option. In testing it seems superior to Duress. First turn EtW. Second turn Wish for Crack the Earth. This will stop most decks from reaching the 2 or 3 mana they need to cast their board sweeper and allows your horde a chance for that fatal second swing.

Elfrago
08-11-2007, 04:13 AM
Crack the Earth appears to be a viable sideboard option. In testing it seems superior to Duress. First turn EtW. Second turn Wish for Crack the Earth. This will stop most decks from reaching the 2 or 3 mana they need to cast their board sweeper and allows your horde a chance for that fatal second swing.

IMHO too random, often it will not work.

Brehn
08-11-2007, 05:42 PM
First turn EtW. Second turn Wish for Crack the Earth.

Why exactly is this better than first turn EtW, second turn Wish for Goblin War Strike, leaving the opponent at zero life?

Hatthehat
08-14-2007, 09:52 PM
I don't know usually you won't have any mana producers and maybe only one card in hand after a first turn empty the warrens.

Versus
08-14-2007, 10:37 PM
Been slowly chipping away at these threads to get a better understanding of the current meta. While all of DTB's are solid, they don't interest me as far as building them. This deck raised an eyebrow though. It's got "Prosbloom" written all over it. Not so much as the win condition is concerned, but the efficiency of the engine is incredible. I like it.

I was shocked there were no Monoliths on any of the builds, but I guess they aren't neccesary...

Bovinious
08-14-2007, 10:52 PM
I assume you mean Grim Monolith, which happens to be banned in Legacy. But your right it wouldnt be needed if they were legal.

Versus
08-14-2007, 10:57 PM
D'oh! I need to go look at that ban list again. Oh well, at least this wasn't as bad as the Earthcraft debacle from 2 weeks ago.

T_B
08-14-2007, 11:32 PM
"I don't know usually you won't have any mana producers and maybe only one card in hand after a first turn empty the warrens."

Unless you played a land, chrome mox, or drew into a SSG, Petal, or had a mana producer in hand. I too think that it is a little un-nesissary, but the SB itself allows for it.

Edit: like 3 people posted while I typed. Or I am blind.

Brehn
08-16-2007, 02:27 PM
I don't think Goblin War Strike is unnecessary. There are enough decks that can produce many creatures quickly (Ichorid, TES, IGGy/r, ...), but don't always do this first turn. So 2nd turn swing, 3rd turn Wish for GWS, then alpha strike can sometimes be the only chance to win if you went for EtW. And honestly, the odds aren't _that_ low you can do it on turn 3. I've drawn into quite a lot of hands with both Burning Wish and EtW lately.

Bryant Cook
08-17-2007, 12:06 AM
I don't think Goblin War Strike is unnecessary. There are enough decks that can produce many creatures quickly (Ichorid, TES, IGGy/r, ...), but don't always do this first turn. So 2nd turn swing, 3rd turn Wish for GWS, then alpha strike can sometimes be the only chance to win if you went for EtW. And honestly, the odds aren't _that_ low you can do it on turn 3. I've drawn into quite a lot of hands with both Burning Wish and EtW lately.

I think that it's more important that Goblin Was Strike (GWS) kills a turn earlier before alot of hate comes down. May this hate be Plague, EE, Deed, ect... That's why its played.

dlevsApiJ
08-18-2007, 04:49 PM
My list at the moment:
Mana ( 42 )
1 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual


Wishes ( 4 )
4 Burning Wish

Kills ( 6 )
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens


Other ( 8 )
4 Serum Powder
4 Pyroblast


Side ( 15 )

4 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Simplify
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Cave-In
1 Reverent Silence

I only play 1 land, you kill much more/faster with the belcher, the problem is that when you pick a Land Grant when you have a land you cant to anything with it, but because you kill much more/faster, this is better in my opinion.
I also play 4 Serum Powders, i think they are very good in this deck, i have never had problems with them, sometimes i have even played them, cause i had 2 mana to much, it gives you a higher stormcount, and more mana in later turns if you need it. The only problem is to Topdeck them, but you also dont want to topdeck a kill when you need a mana source... I know you are going to say i should cut them,, but i won't do that ;).
I play 4 Pyroblast main, as minimal protection, they are much better then ReB, cause you can play them as stom count, on a non-blue spell.
I also play no black, cause you dont need it, the only thing why i like to play black is duress, without the black rituals its also good (whit the black rituals, you cant always play all your rituals, cause of wrong color mana...), and the Bayou isnt very good with your Belcher..

Then my SB, i want to play Dimishing Returns, maybe in the place of Reverent Silence ? I think thats the best thing to do.
If there is somethind strange about my SB, please say it, then i say why i play it this way.

Jip

ps. my english isnt very good

Edit: a question: is it better to board in 4 Spree's, or 3 Spree's and keep the 4th for a Burning Wish in the SB?

ClearSkies
08-18-2007, 10:10 PM
Of course you leave one Shattering Spree in the sideboard, so it will feels like you are playing 7 of them. (3 main board with 4 chances to wish for one)

In my limited experience, I found that Diminishing Returns is a really useful wish card.

On a smaller note, your number of kills is 7, not 6. (Excluding Burning Wishes)

dlevsApiJ
08-19-2007, 07:01 AM
Cut the Reverent Silence for a Diminishing Returns ?

Lego
08-20-2007, 10:13 AM
Try Street Wraith in your Serum Powder slot. It makes it harder to mulligan rather than easier, but I've always found that the deck mulligans pretty well, and Wraith is not as terrible a topdeck.

Bryant Cook
08-20-2007, 10:20 AM
Try Street Wraith in your Serum Powder slot. It makes it harder to mulligan rather than easier, but I've always found that the deck mulligans pretty well, and Wraith is not as terrible a topdeck.

The problem with Street Wraith is it makes mulliganning insane. Keeping a 6 mana source hand and a street wraith, it seems like suicide to me. The deck only plays 11 relevant spells. I think you're better off knowing what you're going to draw over a random card. Personally I think the Street Wraith slot should be Dark Ritual.

dlevsApiJ
08-20-2007, 10:58 AM
And i think the slot should be Serum Powder :smile: . I think black isn't good enough for this deck, without it is better (no Bayou for your belcher, and "never" wrong mana..).
Serum Powders is really great. And most of the time you do it with your begin hand, and dont topdeck very much.

Mvg

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-20-2007, 11:20 AM
The problem with Street Wraith is it makes mulliganning insane. Keeping a 6 mana source hand and a street wraith, it seems like suicide to me. The deck only plays 11 relevant spells. I think you're better off knowing what you're going to draw over a random card. Personally I think the Street Wraith slot should be Dark Ritual.



Well.. the point of Street Wraith is to count it as mana. That example hand you pointed out I would ship in a heat beat. Street Wraith should be used to find mana sources, NOT win conditions. I'm going to start testing Serum Powder, but I just don't like the card that much personally.

dlevsApiJ
08-20-2007, 11:36 AM
But what of you count the SW as mana, an you can only combo with the mana that it should give you. Maybe the SW gives you a kill ;).

cheddercaveman
08-20-2007, 11:46 AM
Well.. the point of Street Wraith is to count it as mana. That example hand you pointed out I would ship in a heat beat. Street Wraith should be used to find mana sources, NOT win conditions. I'm going to start testing Serum Powder, but I just don't like the card that much personally.

You can't really *count* street wraith as anything. You don't know what it'll be. You only have 1 or 2 lands of course, but the problem is that you don't know what the wraith is getting you for your 2 life. In your opening hand you need to see what everything would be, wraith doesnt let you do this. Also, people talk about playing it and making their deck realistically 56 cards, but then they build it as a 60 card deck. This is an odd deck, but thats still how the situation normally works

zulander
08-20-2007, 11:49 AM
You generally count SW as a random card in your deck, but in a deck with 49 mana and 11 kill you can realistically count it as a mana source since the odds are that you'll end up drawing one off the top. However, if you have a hand of 5 mana, 1 kill and 1 sw you should keep it. the SW will most likely be mana and even if it's a kill you'll should be able to go off with 5 mana and a kill con in your hand.

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-20-2007, 12:19 PM
Ok. Maybe I didn't make myself perfectly clear. SW is "generally" a mana source. OBV. you can't classify what the card will be EVERY single time. My point was to mulligan hands where there is a Street Wraith and mana accelerants.

Reagens
08-20-2007, 12:33 PM
I went to a tournament this weekend and why not share the knowledge...

35 people attending.

6 rounds of swiss.

Match 1 mono-green randomness
2-0
Took my time to combo second turn twice.
He didn't sideboard so I was feeling pretty safe.

Match 2 goblins
2-1
Game 1 is easy. Combo first turn for 12 tokens or something.
Game 2. I die because of first turn chalice (I had no mana sources left because of that) and first turn lackey.
Game 3. I can make just enough tokens turn 1 to kill him.

Match 3 loam variant
2-1
Game 1. easy kill with tokens
Game 2. I can make a lot of tokens, but because he used an engineered explosives to kill my first turn petal, I am quite sure he has pyroclasm or something so I decide to wait. I eventually can't find a belcher in time. I die just the turn before I can activate belcher.
Game 3. he resolves a pyrostatic pillar. eventually I can belch for 16 and because of fetches and his own pillar he dies...

Match 4 hanni-fish

Game 1. Win with tokens, altough he had force and I land granted, but I had 1 street wraith causing him to counter the wrong spell.
Game 2. I die because of stifle
Game 3. I start a hand with too little acceleration, but with two red blasts. I decide to keep. He resolves a meddling mage on empty the warrens. Eventually I decide to go. We have a little counter war and because I in can burning wish, sac LED and play tendrils for 20...
I think that the sideboarding plan for this kind of decks is sufficient.

I draw the next two rounds...


Top 8

Goblins
1-2

Altough I can't go off first turn I decide to keep. Eventually I make 12 tokens which was only enough because I was able to burning wish for goblin war strike.
Second game he plays a first turn chalice with lackey. Leaving me manaless. He kills me the turn before I would have been able to activate a belcher.
Third game.
I have to mulligan into 6. Leaving me a hand which is a little short of acceleration. I decide to keep. He has lackey, but only piledriver to follow up next turn. And of course chalice for zero. After two turns he sees a warchief and has another chalice (on 1). I can burning wish for cave-in and wipe the board. Next turn he has another warchief lackey and something else.
He also wanted to resolve another chalice at 0 but that was obviously countered by his other chalice...

Conclusions:

Anything that attacks your artifact mana base is practically instant doom. Because you have to play 3-4 cards sometimes to kill them. Leaving you at nothing.
I always seem to struggle game 2, even when the match-up should still be rather favorable (goblins, loam). On the other hand I won the match against hanni-fish, which was quite a surprise.
If there is anything in the cardpool that would make it easier to find a belcher, that would be great. In the whole tournament I used belcher only 1 time.

Shugyosha
08-20-2007, 12:59 PM
@ Serum Powder
Serum Powder may nice when goldfishing at home or playing against 90% matchups but what about playing against decks with FOW etc.?

You win the die roll, take another seven with Serum Powder and keep the new seven. Your opponent sees your removed cards and knows that he should better mull to a Force to survive the first turn.
This deck is about explosive first and second turn plays smashing the opponent before he even knows what hit him. But Serum Powder is like: I tell you what I play and get another seven for it OK?

And if something goes wrong with your combo or you still have to hold a bad hand this card is the most awful topdeck you could have.

@Street Wraith
Street Wraith, Dark Ritual and even the shitty Serum Powder are in the same slot. So please people don't come up with the same situation of six mana sources + X again and again. If you have six + SW you mulligan it just like any other hand without a kill condition.

Wraith is definately playable but I think the black list with Ritual and Bayou is better. Dark Ritual "is a hell of a drug" and you can try to kill a wounded opponent with tendrils when there is no LED available. The black list can also play Duress instead of Pyroblasts in the board as it is much better to handle the hate you face. Sure it can't handle Meddling Mages but that's why Cave-In and Pyroclasm are in the board.

dlevsApiJ
08-20-2007, 02:12 PM
Yes, but you lose very many matches cause of 2 land inclusive a Bayou. I play only 1 land, a Taiga, so your Belcher kill almost anytime. Its very horrible to do not enough damage with Belcher. And what i've said a different times now, 3 colors is to much, with these Rituals. But yes, duress is Very good, but not because of that card i make the splash (the rest of the cards dont make it better...).

But yes, what you say about FoW and Powder is true...

Elfrago
08-20-2007, 03:41 PM
I'm actually playing SW instead of Desperate Ritual. Is that a mistake?

Shugyosha
08-20-2007, 03:49 PM
I'm actually playing SW instead of Desperate Ritual. Is that a mistake?

If you're playing Dark Ritual it might work but I see no reason to include Dark Ritual and cut Desperate Ritual then.

dlevsApiJ
08-20-2007, 04:44 PM
Ok, i play the SW at the moment. When you Goldfish it's not as good as Powders, but it isnt bad. And against deck with FoW(/Daze) its not so smart to play Powder, thanks for the tip :).

Elfrago
08-21-2007, 03:35 AM
If you're playing Dark Ritual it might work but I see no reason to include Dark Ritual and cut Desperate Ritual then.

Yes, I'm playing Dark Ritual. I cut Desperate Ritual becouse I wanted to play SW, so i decided to cut the worst of the rituals.And Desperate sucks (well maybe not aganist CotV).

dlevsApiJ
08-21-2007, 03:22 PM
@ Serum Powder
Serum Powder may nice when goldfishing at home or playing against 90% matchups but what about playing against decks with FOW etc.?

You win the die roll, take another seven with Serum Powder and keep the new seven. Your opponent sees your removed cards and knows that he should better mull to a Force to survive the first turn.
This deck is about explosive first and second turn plays smashing the opponent before he even knows what hit him. But Serum Powder is like: I tell you what I play and get another seven for it OK?

And if something goes wrong with your combo or you still have to hold a bad hand this card is the most awful topdeck you could have.

Hello.

I've been thinking, I think i better play Powder instead of SW. In the swiss you don't see ***** (deck with counters and a clock) very much, in the T8 you see them much more, but then you may see each others decklist, so the Powders arent a problem. I think in the swiss here normally 2-3 of the 5 decks you play against play FoW. And you don't begin the first game always with Powder. You keep your hand a little bit faster. And in al the games in the swiss, its much better. So, 2-3 games of the 10-15 games its maybe not so good.... Also, if you start, you have to say first of you keep your hand (or is it is you start the other has to say first ?), so the half of the games the other has to say first if he keeps (with or without FoW) and then you can say if you Mull with the Powder. And there is also the option to Mull normal, with a Powder in your hand. I think if you play the build with Powder, it's good to look before the tournament what people are playing (if you're good in remembering that).

yes, i gonna play them again i think.

Mvg

EDIT: After a lot of testing, just playing 4 SW instead of 4 Serum Powder

DURESSyou92
08-24-2007, 07:39 PM
i think street wraith should be main pyroblasts, this deck gets wipped by FOW daze and you could stop that with pyroblast main

dlevsApiJ
08-24-2007, 08:15 PM
There are many builds who already play both ;).

Mvg

Hatthehat
08-24-2007, 09:20 PM
T_B that card is one of the worst sideboard options i have heard in awhile you will usually win afer a turn one empty the warrens unless your opponent has pyroclasm the rules about english and grammer suck on this site some of us wish not to speak english and although aour country choses to speak english some small area like this chose not too,you should abandon the policy it really sucks as most of you are from america you don't understand!

Following the rules about grammar is not an option. We expect you to avoid run-on sentences like the one found in this post. Make an attempt at punctuating properly or post on another site. Warning issued.

-PR

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-24-2007, 09:32 PM
T_B that card is one of the worst sideboard options i have heard in awhile you will usually win afer a turn one empty the warrens unless your opponent has pyroclasm the rules about english and grammer suck on this site some of us wish not to speak english and although aour country choses to speak english some small area like this chose not too,you should abandon the policy it really sucks as most of you are from america you don't understand!


If you don't like the rules, then don't post. I'm sure there are Magic Forums in Ireland. It is just annoying for people to have to actually think and decipher words and sentences just to understand what you are trying to say. Also, poor spelling and grammar makes it look like you don't know what you are talking about. I'm not bagging on you for being Irish, but you need to understand if they go easy on typos and fragment sentences etc. , the boards will turn into baby scratches before you know it.

shteev
08-25-2007, 09:53 AM
Have you considered playing 4 tarmogoyfs in the main?

It'd help you considerably against something, probably.

And every other bugger is.

dlevsApiJ
08-25-2007, 03:53 PM
Come on, this a Fast combo deck!!! With the Goyf, you only become slower, sure you dont play him!!
I really hate it that people would play Goyf in each deck,, but in combo (ok, CephalidBreakfast plays it... but with another reason).

Mvg

NANTUKO_SHADY
08-25-2007, 04:13 PM
Have you considered playing 4 tarmogoyfs in the main?

It'd help you considerably against something, probably.

And every other bugger is.



Umm... worst idea ever? Belcher already crushes Aggro. And as for Threshold, we lose to their counter magic, not their beaters. I don't ever see myself wishing Goyf was in my opening hand.

legacyplayer0
08-25-2007, 10:05 PM
At least it's better than Storm Entity.

DURESSyou92
08-25-2007, 11:02 PM
how about channel in place of 3 SWs and 1 SB?

C.P.
08-25-2007, 11:21 PM
how about channel in place of 3 SWs and 1 SB?


Perhaps you're not serious. Check out banned list first.

I found myself running disruption cards like REB instead of SW, just because I hate mulling with SWs.

T_B
08-26-2007, 12:24 AM
T_B that card is one of the worst sideboard options i have heard in awhile you will usually win afer a turn one empty the warrens unless your opponent has pyroclasm the rules about english and grammer suck on this site some of us wish not to speak english and although aour country choses to speak english some small area like this chose not too,you should abandon the policy it really sucks as most of you are from america you don't understand!

-PR[/i][/color]



Alright, to defend myself (After reading it 3 times) I think that it is a needed SB card. With lots of goblins on the board, things like moat, Ghostly prison, and Propiganda can stop your attack. Also, with exess mana, you can win the turn earlier.

The point my post tried to make was that you need to have 3 mana to wish + GWS. This makes it quite difficult, and usually includes a +1 rit, and 2 starying rits (Land/chrome Mox) Situational, but the SB is generally wish cards and blasts, so it should be ok.

Jaynel
08-26-2007, 11:18 AM
how about channel in place of 3 SWs and 1 SB?

I wish. That would push the deck into ridiculousness.

Bovinious
08-26-2007, 01:49 PM
At least it's better than Storm Entity.

No, no its not.

FredMaster
08-29-2007, 04:49 AM
What do you guys think about this list here?
//Lands
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

//Kill
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens

//Rest
4 Street Wraith
4 Wild Cantor
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
4 Seething Song
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual

//Tutor
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor

//SB
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Cave-In
1 Hull Breach
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Overmaster
4 Red Elemental Blast

The Diminishing Returns and Ill-Gotten Gains are just so powerful, if you have multiple LEDs online.
Sometimes i do the Tendrils kill aswell - why? Because i can!
The Goblin War Strike just makes just even faster and with Duress you try to avoid counters.

MfG Fred

dlevsApiJ
08-29-2007, 09:08 AM
I think black isnt good enough, with the main reason that Bayou isnt a mountain, and 1 land is much better (i have already said other reasons before..).

Pyroblast is much better than Red Elemental Blast, cause you can play it on a non blue spell/permanent for storm.

Your SB is very nice, but i like to play 4 Xantid Swarm, cause its the best answer the counter...

4 Spree is also very good, you can board in 3 and leave 1 for a Wish against CotV/Trinisphere/etc.

Mvg

Iranon
08-29-2007, 09:14 AM
I think the Infernal Tutors are out of place; I'd rather run more non-conditional mana in the form of Elvish Spirit Guide.

Why Overmaster? It doesn't do anything for ETW, negates the use of mana sources in the first place, and having multiple wishes for Overmaster and the Doomsday Device you want in the first place seems unlikely.

MfG, auch Fred.

FredMaster
08-29-2007, 09:26 AM
I think the Infernal Tutors are out of place; I'd rather run more non-conditional mana in the form of Elvish Spirit Guide.

Ever witnessed the insane synergie, that LEDs and Infernals have?
Why run more SGs? It just doesn't work together with the EtW-Plan.
No Stormcountincrease is not good.


Why Overmaster? It doesn't do anything for ETW, negates the use of mana sources in the first place, and having multiple wishes for Overmaster and the Doomsday Device you want in the first place seems unlikely.

Overmaster is just for increasing your stormcount + cantrip, and your following EtW can't be countered. It is definitely not the first option i'll go for, when a Wish resolved. And it will prolly leave the SB as soon as you show me a better cc1 cantrip + maybe nice effect.

xXxBretWeedxXx
08-29-2007, 09:56 AM
Ever witnessed the insane synergie, that LEDs and Infernals have?
Why run more SGs? It just doesn't work together with the EtW-Plan.
No Stormcountincrease is not good.

Overmaster is just for increasing your stormcount + cantrip, and your following EtW can't be countered. It is definitely not the first option i'll go for, when a Wish resolved. And it will prolly leave the SB as soon as you show me a better cc1 cantrip + maybe nice effect.


How does Street Wraith work with your ETW/Storm count plan? Street Wraith is considered typically used to draw for a mana source, so you should cut it for ESG, so you actually have a better chance of drawing a mana source. You may not get any more storm count, but you can use ESG to help with Goblin Charbelcher's activation cost to get around a FOW or other counter and you don't lose 2 life to it. Not playing ESG seems like a terrible move.

-4 SW
+4 ESG

Brehn
08-29-2007, 10:00 AM
Ever witnessed the insane synergie, that LEDs and Infernals have?
Ever witnessed the insane synergy that Bayous and Belchers have? I like to win if I get to activate Belcher.


Why run more SGs? It just doesn't work together with the EtW-Plan.
No Stormcountincrease is not good.
22 initial mana sources > 18 initial mana sources. Adds consistency in my opinion.


Overmaster is just for increasing your stormcount + cantrip, and your following EtW can't be countered. It is definitely not the first option i'll go for, when a Wish resolved. And it will prolly leave the SB as soon as you show me a better cc1 cantrip + maybe nice effect.

Huh? You're afraid of getting EtW countered? Explain.
I can't think of any situation when wishing for a 1cc cantrip is the right decision. When you go for EtW and have it in your hand, you go for Goblin War Strike. An additional Shattering Spree seems clearly better in this slot.

FredMaster
08-29-2007, 10:45 AM
Ever witnessed the insane synergy that Bayous and Belchers have? I like to win if I get to activate Belcher.

Ever witnessed the insane synergy that sarcastic faces and Forums have?
:rolleyes:
If your opponents has an IQ at least greater than his age, he will not let the Belcher resolve, will he?


I can't think of any situation when wishing for a 1cc cantrip is the right decision. When you go for EtW and have it in your hand, you go for Goblin War Strike.
Well Overmaster is the first thing to be kicked out, but you will have to come up with something else than a second Shattering Spree.
I really see your point. I just had that card laying around and like 1 slot left in my wishboard and I didnt really thought clearly about that.:frown:

@ xXxBretWeedxXx:
The reason why i prefer the SW is, because it allows me to play with
less cards. It may make the mulligan decisions a little harder, but Belcher just contents: Acceleration and Kill.
And therefore it is easier to find the right cards - You are playing 56 cards.
And i really prefer the EtW Kill because it is way stronger against Controldecks, who just wait on Forcing/Dazing your Belcher.

dlevsApiJ
08-29-2007, 11:00 AM
So play Xantid Swarms side.... That's a really good option against FoW/Daze, they board there creature hate like STP out..
Then you can cut the Black splash, and go more for the Belcher kill, with the Swarms side, they have to let hem resolve...

Also play 4 Pyroblast (not 4 ReB) Main,, thats much better then side..


Mvg

FredMaster
08-29-2007, 12:18 PM
Yeah great idea man. One Swarm side. Congratz!
And to avoid your next post: No i don't have enough space for 4 of them!
Sometimes Pyroblasts might be better in main than in side. But in my meta there is more (nonblue ofc :tongue: ) aggro than Control.
So exspect at least some Goldfishs. And the only thing i don't want to draw in those games is something for a Deck i don't play against.
Therefore it is not so smart to play Blasts main.

And whazzup about your Pyro/Red Elemental Blast thing? There the same beside the artwork. -.-

KillemallCFH
08-29-2007, 12:25 PM
And whazzup about your Pyro/Red Elemental Blast thing? There the same beside the artwork. -.-REB - Rules Text (Oracle): Choose one - Counter target blue spell; or destroy target blue permanent.

Pyroblast - Rules Text (Oracle): Choose one - Counter target spell if it's blue; or destroy target permanent if it's blue.

See the difference? Pyroblast can target any spell or permanent; REB needs to target a blue spell/permanent. Therefore, if you have a Pyroblast in hand and have an extra mana, you can use it on one of your own spells, even though it will have no effect, simply to increase storm count, which you cannot do with REB.

Brehn
08-29-2007, 12:28 PM
No, Pyroblast can target anything thus giving +1 storm while REB requires a blue permanent / blue spell on the stack to be cast.

Another question: How often do you wish for Duress? I ran it in the past but never found it useful.

FredMaster
08-29-2007, 12:40 PM
Another question: How often do you wish for Duress? I ran it in the past but never found it useful.
Seems like you've never played against a deck running blue... The Duress is the card, the Wishboard relies on - apart from the EtW plan.

@ KillemallCFH:
Yeah, you are right. I'll better change that one in my list.