The problem with chancellor is that you must have it in your opening and go off next turn as late. Yeah....library or mirri could be choices of perpetual fuel...i dont know.
Moreover i'm running a monolith verion (4 of and no mox) and it's meh...it's good as a "colorless ritual" but it is not wowowowww....sometimes is cool sometimes it sucks...I dislike mox (chrome) too but i think those are our best options. I thought about a split but i sounds poor to me. Has anybody thought on mox opal. 3 chrome / 1 opal maybe? 3 monolith / 1 opal?
Opal has no card disadvantange but i needs metalcraft.... 4 belcher, 4 petal, 4 led + 3 additional artifacts...could it be viable??
GC.
You can't really include Belcher in your totals toward Metalcraft, because more often than not we'd like to use Mox Opal prior to casting Belcher (or even just going the EtW or BWish plan). I don't think it is that good.
I was very happy with 3 Chrome Mox and 2 Grim Monolith. 3 seems like a sweet number for Chrome Mox, and I'd never want to play more than 2 Grim Monolith.
After lots of goldfishing, reading and asking on this forum, and watching any videos I could find... at about two weeks ago I finally brought this deck to a sanctioned tournament.
There were 32 players there, and my games were as it follows:
ROUND 1: vs. "Mono-B Control" = 1-2
ROUND 2: vs. "UB Tezzerator" = 2-0
ROUND 3: vs. “Dream Halls w/ Lab Maniac” = 0-2
ROUND 4: vs. “Merfolks” = 0-2
ROUND 5: vs. "Esper Stoneblade" = 2-0
Results:
• W-L-D: 2-3-0
• Final standing: 19th
Awful performance, greatly due to my lack of experience with the deck, which made me do lots of misplays (like playing a Taiga from my hand after I Probed my Merfolk oponent and forgetting that I had seen a Wasteland on his hand;), and maybe a little bit due to my 'bad luck' on the pairings, which made me face basically an enormous quantity of discard and countermagic.
I even got screwed because of one deck playing 1x Mindbreak Trap maindeck and having it on his initial hand vs. my T1 Belcher play (he didn't know me neither what was I playing); or another one that draw his maindeck Echoing Decay on T2, right after me EtW'ing for 12 on T1(same thing here)!
Well, there were some very frustrating plays there... - but, of course, some experience being gained through my mistakes.
...
I played a 'stock' list with this SB:
When SB'ing, on some of the MU's where I bring in the Carpets and/or Libraries, I got a little 'color-screwed' for having one of them on my starting hand and not being able to cast it right away. (I maybe sided out 2-3x Land Grant, which lowered a little my green spell count)Originally Posted by SB:
Has this ever been an issue for anyone here?
...
Also, if you happen to have your combo disrupted, do you:
a) Try to combo again as soon as you draw the missing pieces back (and try to not give your op. the chance to draw more cards and find another counter)?
b) ...Or do you prefer to try to take your time, gather some more 'spare cards', and assume you'll have other spells countered mid-combo again (however, by doing so, letting your oponnent more likely draw into his conterspells)?
(I found out the hard way that the 'b' route is particularly very difficult to achieve against Merfolk, because his clock is pretty fast.)
Last edited by andrebonotto; 06-10-2013 at 04:30 PM.
Finished in the Top 8 of the monthly Mythic Games Legacy tournament her in Elmira. Here's my list:
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Mirri's Guile
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
2 Seething Song
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
Sideboard
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Hull Breach
1 Shattering Spree
1 Past in Flames
1 Reanimate
2 Chancellor of the Annex
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Xantid Swarm
And here's my matchups (only 17 people, so five rounds with a cut to the Top 8)
Round 1: Miracles Lost 2-1
Round 2: CheeriOs Won 2-0
Round 3: Miracles Won 2-0
Round 4: Goblins Won 2-0
Round 5: ID
Quarterfinals: BUG Lost 2-1
The mainboard Mirri's Guile turned out to be only relevant after game 1. Planning to move it to the sideboard, probably dropping the Chancellors. Planning to test Grim Monolith in it's place.
I've found the best way to deal with control match-ups is just to not go all in. All the games I won versus Blue decks, I was able to go for it without totally emptying my hand, being able to try again a few turns later.
I'm Phil. I play red.
Worldslayer Count: 246. I need more.
MTGO: WorldslayerGuy I mostly play Limited.
Grats on the placing, I don't know where this deck has gone lately at larger events, it's seemingly disappeared from the top tables over the past couple months where before it was getting a top 8/16 rather occasionally.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Good sideboard card from M14 possibly? I don't play this deck but it might be a good option here.
Young Pyromancer. 1R
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may put a 1/1 token onto the battlefield.
p/t=2/1
Eh, the little guy doesn't count artifacts and doesn't count anything played before it. At least Storm Entity does.
But you're talking about Belcher here. The deck doesn't reach a threshold at two mana: it has to spend mana to cast more rituals/sources. Casting some mana sources and then casting Young Pyromancer might kill your combo chain since you have to cast Young Pyromancer as early as you can, unlike EtW. Spending a first turn casting Young Pyromancer and going off next turn doesn't seem that stellar either if you had to generate two spells to cast Young Pyromancer, such as Grant + mana spell. Another thing, Pyromancer still depends on tokens that are summoning sick. It doesn't circumvent the same hate that targets Empty the Warrens like EE or Engineered Plague.
Been running a list that cuts Burning Wish, Lion's Eye Diamond and Seething Song in favor of Serum Powder and Grim Monolith, originally as a budget consideration but now as a serious consideration after gold fishing it and realizing that Serum Powder and ~8 win conditions is consistent.
4 Serum Powder
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Grim Monolith
3 Chancellor of the Annex
I think the idea has a lot of merrit to it because you avoid the problem of having Burning Wish, Lion's Eye Diamond and Pryoblast esq spells in hand vs blue in your post-board games and between drawing 7 cards, mulliganing to 6 cards and hitting Serum Powder hands you pretty consistently go off without having to put awkward cards in your deck like Seething Song to hit the 6 mana threshold for Wish->Warrens.
People have had success without Burning Wish, but I'm surprised that your build even functions... I haven't goldfished it so I definitely can't say with certainty that it's right out, but when I look at that list I see that you've cut 7 net R cards to pin under Chrome Mox, instead of 4 +3s and 4 +2s you have 8 +1s (Grim Monolith and Chancellor are the subs, right?), and you have a 1-of that you can't really afford to Serum Powder (Taiga). Like...how in the world could that improve the consistency of getting to 7 mana for Belcher? Further, the adds on the whole don't help add to storm (removing Wish, Chancellor).
Have you taken it to a tournament to try it out?
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Personally, I prefer a Wish build, because I think it makes the deck more flexible. But, as phazonmuant said, Wishless builds do have some success. Anyway...
Not entirely sold on Grim Monolith, and definitely not as a four-of. I've found in testing it's really bad in multiples, especially given that it makes colorless mana only. As for Serum Powder, I agree with phazonmuant. It just doesn't seem like it will increase consistency, and that's always been this deck's strong point. That being said, results don't lie, and if this build has been working well, I'd love to here about it.
I'm Phil. I play red.
Worldslayer Count: 246. I need more.
MTGO: WorldslayerGuy I mostly play Limited.
Serum Powder and 1xTaiga isn't a real problem, if you ever draw your Serum Powder and Taiga in the same hand you can just take a natural mulligan. You could use a 2nd Taiga I suppose, but I doubt the number of misfires on Belcher would be worth it. There are more than enough Red sources for Chrome Mox, but you can always play with Pyroblast or Guttural Response in the MD if you want to save SB space or just throw Seething Song back in.
Disregarding Belcher activations, mana sources lower on the curve like Chancellor of the Tangle and Grim Monolith are better than mana sources higher on the curve like Seething Song because you're trying to reach 4 mana to cast your threat instead of 6 mana to tutor for your threat or 7 mana to cast and activate your threat on the same turn. I'm sure not having LED sets the deck back on its average turn for activating Belcher, but short of losing the combo mirror (which frankly Belcher already does) I don't think it's really detrimental or that people who cut Chrome Mox aren't doing the same thing (for some reason people don't understand how important that card is for Belcher activations)
I mean, if a deck with Serum Powder essentially gives you a free tutor for Belcher and Warrens then you're playing a faster deck than with Burning Wish regardless of LED, and an arguably more consistent deck because you don't get yourself into those 6 card hand spots where you have to have either a LED or Seething Song.
You'll wait longer to activate Belcher and mulligan to 6 more, but the deck has no win conditions that require 6 mana and doesn't re-draw your opponent into counter spells. The real interesting thing tho' is that because the deck doesn't have LED or re-draws for your opponent, you can potentially be more resilient to counter magic with Pyroblast and Guttural Response post-board.
I'm not saying this is the end all, be all of Belcher because obviously Serum Powder has its own issues, but it does seem to work in gold fishing and I think it's another viable direction to look at. I've mostly played post-board games with RUG in order to figure out how having Serum Powder, 8 win conditions and ~7 counter spells works in that match up. It's possible this could just be part of a SBing plan where you drop Wish/LED for Serum Powder and counter spells post-board.
This deck has really fallen off the radar lately, not since Vegas a few months ago has it even performed at the Starcity Open Series. I thought this deck would go up as some people even started putting their Force of Will's in their sideboards in place for more Discard.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Inspired by this post by Bahamuth, I set about to create my own version of a Belcher goldfishing program.
Written in C#, it's capable of running 1,000,000 goldfishes in just over 1 minute.
Edit: Got everything coded!
Running a fairly standard list:
4 Burning Wish
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
After 1 million goldfishes, here's what I found:
- 37% of the time it just failed. Couldn't produce enough mana or mulliganned to death.
- 24% of the time it could use Goblin Charbelcher.
- 62% of those were putting Belcher in play and saying go.
- 3% of those were activated, but less than 20 damage
- 34% of those activated and 20+ damage resulted.
- 37% of the time it could use Empty the Warrens
- Bell curve centered on 12 tokens (26%) with 10 tokens (25%) right behind.
Interesting Tidbits:
Replacing Pyretic/Desperate with Gitaxian Probe changed the percentages by less than 1%.
Replacing both with Probe + Street Wraith changed the percentages to 39/23/37 (More failures)
In neither case did I change the mulligan algorithm to account for draw spells.
-T
Last edited by Dissolution; 07-21-2013 at 12:52 AM. Reason: Adding Results
Went to SCG Richmond and played in the sole Legacy win-a-box on Sunday. Split the finals with Tin Fins. I played the same deck I listed here.
Round 1 vs Spanish Inquisition
G1: I keep 7 cards on the play, but I need an additional mana source. I decide to keep and pass the turn. He looks confused, and starts to storm. When he cast Ill-Gotten Gains, I decline to discard my hand and scoop.
G2: I make 12 goblins on the play. He plays Belcher, but hits Bayou as the 10th card. I proceed to win.
G3: He storms, but wiffs on Infernal Contract. I play out Belcher with two permanent mana sources and a Grim Monolith in hand. He draws, passes, and I win.
Round 2 vs Jund
Note: He didn't see my deck, but I watched him play, so I have the information advantage.
G1: I make 14 goblins on the play, he plays a Deathrite Shaman, but fails to find Maelstrom Pulse T2 and I win.
G2: He plays a Bayou and passes, and I sigh that doesn't have Deathrite or discard. I play out Belcher and hold double Land Grant and Lotus Petal in hand. T2 he plays a Deathrite and passes, so I draw Tinder Wall and win.
I drew with Tin Fins. We played for fun and I lost since he won the die roll. He T1'd me both games 1 and 3. I got 18 packs but shipped 6 back to my friend who let me borrow $15 to play. I crack Scavenging Ooze, Garruk, and foil Mutavault from my 12 packs.
Like I said in the past, there is absolutely nothing I would change in my maindeck. It's perfect for how I see the deck.
L2 Judge
Congrats on the finish. After seeing success people have had with 10 wincons over 11, I'm going to try cutting an Empty. Not sure what to run in it's place (going to start testing a third Manamorphose, see where it goes from there).
Curious as to what the reasoning behind keeping Lotus Petal in hand vs. Jund is. Seems to me keeping it in hand just opens it up to discard, whereas playing it just means they might Decay it. And if they want to Decay a Lotus petal...more power to them.
I'm Phil. I play red.
Worldslayer Count: 246. I need more.
MTGO: WorldslayerGuy I mostly play Limited.
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