This may have been going on for a while before I noticed, but there were two Belcher lists in the top 16 (one in the top8) of the SCG Classic today, and I thought that deck had basically crossed into the realm of things that used to exist, but had become obsolete. So I checked TCDecks and it put up 3 other Top 8s in >33 person tournaments in 2016 so far, alongside 5 top 16s. That's better than the results the deck put up in the entirety of 2015 (6 T8s, 0 T16) in comparable tournaments.
Does his have something to do with Chalice decks beating up on Force of Will decks while not getting their own disruption online as quickly? I realize that TC Decks isn't a perfect source, but it also has several league results posted. Does anyone have any insight? Is this just noise? Obviously, s/n isn't particularly high in any case, but I am curious.
I don't think 10% of FoW decks being replaced by 10% Chalice decks makes the meta much better for Belcher. Probably makes it marginally worse.
In any case Classics are pretty small events and the Belcher player probably only had to play 6 rounds to make that t8. The deck's a casino game and some people are gonna hit the jackpot w/ draws and matchups once in a while.
It makes sense that it seems like it shows up more now that the prestige SCG legacy events are smaller - the deck's real enemy is playing more magic and the longer a tournament goes, the worse its results are gonna be.
More people trying out their luck doesn't mean the deck gets better. The few people I faced in league with Belcher all had terrible records.
Ever since Jarvis Yu winning GP SeaTac with Lands and the rise of Eldrazi Aggro, more and more people are sleeving up non-FoW decks like Lands, 4 colors Loam/Aggro Loam(Chalice + KotR), Eldrazi... etc. There used to be plenty of RUG Delver players, they now feel like endangered animal. I guess I would change deck if I had to play against Chalice, Lands, and Shardless decks all day as a RUG Delver player. As a result, Stifle is at all time low, at least that's my theory.
As far as SB goes, who still run Ethersworn Canonist in their SB? Most people would either use MM, or just change that slot for something else, maybe Eldrazi hate. Also, when you are not focusing on Legacy the format because you spend your time in preparing for Invitational. Play a combo deck in a Classic post-Invitational makes a lot of sense.
I totally just recall this rant by Cedric Philips
https://youtu.be/i_VLFZhfrBQ
Eldrazi is going to win the dice roll 50% of the time and as long as they mull to t1 Chalice or Thorn, they'll win practically every one of those matches. Belcher is going to win the dice roll 50% of the time, but still lose to itself. So the matchup slightly favors whatever number is bigger (% Chalice Eldrazi doesn't have or mull to a t1 lock piece and a sol land, % of the time Belcher loses to itself / can't win t1) as those are the only matches you won't win despite winning the die roll.
Overall the difference between 60% of decks having FoW and 50% of decks having FoW is pretty marginal compared to other things (how many people are showing up with Belcher, how small the tournament is.) Even in a meta with 60%/70% FoW decks, if enough Belcher players show up to a small tournament, one or two of them is likely to win the matchup / draw lottery and do well. OTOH, If there's a 15 round tournament with literally no blue players and exactly one Belcher player, they are still extremely unlikely to T8 despite the perfect meta, since the deck is still going to lose to itself a certain % of the time, and the longer the tournament goes, the more likely it's going to do that multiple times.
I think perception always plays a role in people deciding to pick up Belcher or not. Always has. The popular belief that blue is on the outs for once gets folks figuring that THE TIME TO BELCH IS FINALLY HERE like a first date just ended.
Anyway, this upswing should surprise nobody, and the OP generally got things correct. Good catch to spot that.
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"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
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I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Ultimately we are talking about the motives of literally a handful of people so I wouldn't read too much into anything. I think the type of people who pay enough attention to the legacy meta enough to notice the some small % increase in its viability probably doesn't have a lot of overlap with the type of person who actually plays Belcher. If you're a good player you still are better off not playing Belcher at a longer tournament, even in relatively favorable metas.
That's true Richard and Chalice on 0 might actually be better, depending on their hand. You have the account for the fact that in a blind situation an Eldrazi player will Chalice on 1, and in a situation where they know the matchup (so all g2, g3s) they'll Chalice for 0.
Still, Eldrazi has lots of relevant plays (t2 TKS if Belcher doesn't win t1, Trinisphere and Revoker in some builds.) I don't know if anyone has extensively tested the Eldrazi vs Belcher matchup, someone could probably code a computer program to do it. Still, I would guess it's pretty 50-50. Why do you think Thorn is bad? Do you mean just as a card or in the matchup? It seems far better than Chalice.
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Iatee, I'm not guessing that perception is a big factor. I know from experience that it is. And a 10% difference in FoW is enormous, BTW.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Oh for sure, but I doubt most players are going to sit down and drop Chalice@0 on turn 1 against an unknown opponent. Once you know they're on Belcher, I think 0 is definitely the correct play, although that still gives them a huge amount of leeway. Thorn is still the best thing Eldrazi can do, as most of the Red rituals are shitty and only net 1 mana. The problem with Warping wail is that it costs mana, which is a pretty big downside against Belcher.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Again, we are talking about a handful of people. If we want to know why the handful of people who played it at the last Classic played it, we could probably find literally every one and ask them.
But Belcher remains a t2.5 deck even in a 50% FoW world and nobody who actually wants to win a big tournament would ever show up with it. There is a difference between 'real' metashifts (generally the result of legacy spikes moving from one T1 blue deck to another) and 'a few more people who only own Belcher decided to show up today' + 'a few people were tired and decided they were too lazy to play their real deck'.
Let's assume a Belcher player needs to hit a string of 6 non-FoW players to T8 an event (unrealistic since Belcher can beat blue decks and loses to itself a certain % of the time vs non-blue). In any case I would imagine the difference between there being 2 and 4 Belcher players at a 6 round event is far more meaningful than the difference between FoW decks being 50% or 60%. Anyone want to do the math?
And like I said before, tournament length matters a lot. High variance decks are best suited for spiking super small tournaments. Whatever the above math is, it's gonna get pretty bleak by the time you hit a 10+ round tournament. I think this element of legacy is probably under-appreciated, that tournament length itself has a pretty significant effect on the meta and on results. Low variance decks are always going to do better at larger events over time and high variance decks are always going to do better at smaller events.
With the drop in Legacy support by SCG, and the shift by Wizards towards Modern, aren't smaller tournaments an even larger part of the 'real' meta? Aren't shifts in these smaller events a component of 'real' metashifts? Why wouldn't a smart player take advantage of a perceived drop in FoW prevalence to win a >100 player tourney? Just because it wouldn't win a GP?
I'm going to assume you meant to say "can't beat blue decks".
Aren't your assumptions a little ridiculous? Many decks only run 4 FoW as counter-magic. Others that run Daze can only use the card on the play. How far do you mulligan looking for Force + blue card before admitting they might rebuild faster than you and win anyway?
Belcher took 14th out of 263. Twelve of the top 16 ran FoW.
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14671&iddeck=108506
Undefeated Day 1 at GP Kyoto (1943 players). The 4 other undefeated decks played FoW.
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16755&iddeck=125526
More recently, 6th out of 99. Half the Top 8 ran FoW.
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=18620&iddeck=141100
One of the results that prompted the OP. Nineteenth out of 92. Half of the top 32 ran FoW.
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20060&iddeck=152840
I said myself in the quote that the assumptions were unrealistic. Can't beat blue and always beats non-blue is obviously not true, but it's close enough to being true that running those statistics wouldn't be nonsense. In fact, the % of times it actually beats FoW decks and loses to non-blue decks might even be similar enough to effectively cancel out.
A good player wouldn't take advantage of a shift in FoW to play an insanely high variance deck, even if it's now t1.5 instead of t2.5, because a good player wants to take advantage of everything they can take advantage of. The two ways they can maximize their chances at winning the tournament are playing a true t1 deck and by outplaying their opponents. Belcher doesn't allow them to do either of these things, so it will remain a bad choice.
For bad players looking to spike a small event, it is a fairly reasonable choice, but I think that was true before Eldrazi too. And Eldrazi is actually a better choice for doing that.
This is a good point actually. I guess, rather, there are multiple 'real' metas (large gp/open meta, smaller local tournament metas, online metas) but the small tournament meta is larger and more prominent than it used to be.
I always bring Belcher to my LGS when decks with FoW are a low % of the meta. However last time my opponent needed two FoWs AND and ancient grudge to beat me. Belcher is more resilient than people think.
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