[Deck] Belcher

[Eldariel]

how is chromatic star better than chromatic sphere??

You can sacrifice it to any effect and get a card out of it (think Welder, etc.) and you get a card if it's destroyed. Chromatic Sphere only gives you a card if it's used for mana. Besides, it can lead to you having face-down cards in your hand, which is just weird -.-

[APriestOfGix]

i don't know, i think there are too many Leylins around, so im staying wih the sphere, as it also can't be stifled...

[Atwa]

i don't know, i think there are too many Leylins around, so im staying wih the sphere, as it also can't be stifled...

When someone has a stifle in his/her hand against you, my bet would be he would use it to counter the belcher's ability, not some mana fixing thing.

[No_Life_No_Future]

Could Rally the Horde be an alternate win?

Rally the Horde
5R Sorcery
Oracle text: Remove the top three cards of your library from the game. If the last card removed isn’t a land, repeat this process until the last card removed is a land. Put a 1/1 red Warrior creature token into play for each nonland card removed from the game this way.

If we could somehow give the 1/1s haste we wouldnt have to worry about not being able to attack before decking ourselves, thouh i cant think of an easy way :(.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

no thats not an alternative win condition unless you run 4 Concordant Crossroads or 4 Conjurer's Bauble....

[DeathwingZERO]

no thats not an alternative win condition unless you run 4 Concordant Crossroads or 4 Conjurer's Bauble....

Or a single Anger from the SB and make sure to fetch the Taiga first. I would personally say it does seem like a solid backup plan, but even then, Anger would have to be put in the graveyard and not RFG.

As for the list itself, I've looked it over on the last couple of pages, and seen almost little to no changes to the lists that LinkXwing, myself and a couple other guys were running back in late 04 early 05 (with the exception of SB Confidants, they weren't around yet). Is there nothing new for this deck from the entire timeframe we've seen since then, or is it just that so many people are worried about Storm combo's that people believe this deck can slip under the radar again?

[Sugar Woof]

The thought of playing a rally the horde and an anger in the sb just sickens me. It seems like it would only take the deck ten steps back and lose any progress it has made towards of becoming a tier 1 deck. Why need an alt win condition when the deck has an answer for almost everything maindeck. Living wish for Viridian Shaman for needles, duress, welder tricks. Barring your opponents responses to these of course, it still has the answers. Why throw in an alt win condition that seems like it would only clutter things and get you to shy away from the main part of the deck. It's so much easier to combo with the way it already is because you can do welder tricks, it only cost 4 to cast and 3 to activate which can happen in the same turn or next turn, it doesn't cost 5R, doesn't involve anger in any way, and when it comes down to it charbelcher is easier to pull of turn 1 than Rally The Horde is on turn 1.

@dragon_demon1
There really isn't an abundance of Leyline of Void running around right now, in what IGGy Pop, random sb's of rogue decks, possibly sb of Deadguy/Red Death in a heavy thresh meta. That's not enough to pass up star over sphere, and atwa2002 is right they won't be stifling the star, they'll stifle the belcher activation. At the same time, stifle really isn't a often played card, it sees some play in MUC, Duck Hunt, and maybe a few others.

[DeathwingZERO]

The thought of playing a rally the horde and an anger in the sb just sickens me. It seems like it would only take the deck ten steps back and lose any progress it has made towards of becoming a tier 1 deck. Why need an alt win condition when the deck has an answer for almost everything maindeck. Living wish for Viridian Shaman for needles, duress, welder tricks. Barring your opponents responses to these of course, it still has the answers.

I personally wouldn't choose it myself, I'm just saying it's much easier to get Haste than relying on Crossroads that your opponent can abuse easier. In all honesty, this deck has been considered long dead since the overabundance of Landstill last year, and the decks that have taken place in Tier 1 are even more capable of hating against this deck. A side win condition is nearly always a bonus to any combo deck, and this one is no exception. Your 2 Living Wish is not nearly enough answer to 4 Meddling Mage (Duress can't hit) or Pithing Needle, espeically if they end up getting countered. It's a problem the deck has had since day one, it's rediculously explosive, but dies to both itself and even the slightest bit of denial. It's pretty much the largest risk-taker in Legacy.

As it stands, I'm still curious how the thread is getting so many responses with the list literally unchanged. Here's a few things that I noticed when playing the deck that I'm not seeing much talk about.

-What does the deck have to help it's consistency? Spoils is probably the cheapest "tutor" by far next to Gamble, but neither are absolutely reliable. Personally, I found I fizzled way more often than expected on paper, and the "random" Spoils kill average of 10% was more like 25% due to bad shuffling or a huge lack of shuffle effects. Here's 3 really good choices, which only would need slight modifications to implement:
Infernal Tutor is Demonic in any deck running LED, and if you can't get it Hellbent, it'll at least get one of two things: acceleration, or kill condition. That's all the deck has.
Plunge is instant speed depth, at a rate you feel comfortable with choosing. Both are much better off for consistency than Gamble, unless you want to rely on Welder in a heavy anti-creature field.
Grim Tutor in my opinion is exactly what this deck was asking for, if not for the huge price tag. Often I found myself with a ton of mana (primarily black, obviously) and absolutely nothing consistent to work with. Either Plunge didnt dig far enough, or Spoils was too risky. Grim may cost 3, but the card goes directly to hand, meaning your LED is even more abusive, because your not risking the life loss from mana burn if you can't dig far enough.

-Why Brainstorm without any consistent shuffle methods? The only shuffle effects I saw in the previous lists were 4 Land Grant and a Gamble, maybe up to 4. That's really not nearly enough without any other draw or deck manipulation. This seems really bad if you know for a fact your next few turns aren't going to get you the cards you want. Also, you have only 8 ways to get blue mana, 12 with Chromatic (I'm not going to even count LED, with as many times you need it for either green, red, or black mana.....and imprinting a Brainstorm on Chrome seems like a total waste to me). If you want dig for cheap, stick on color with Plunge, Grim, or Infernal. Belcher's life total means nothing unless you need to use Spoils or are goldfishing too slow (turn 3 or after).

-What is your backup plan if you don't have a Duress in your opening hand? The deck is constantly walking on glass against anything blue. A single counterspell cripples you for an unknown number of turns, relying solely on topdeck and inconsistent "tutors". Have any of the recent lists attempted to maindeck Xantid Swarm again in addition to Duress, or have other "outs" been tested maindeck? I know this was probably the main reason I threw the deck out and went to Storm combo, it was both inconsistent and was the worst combo deck to go up against any denial. Most storm decks pack at least backup plans, or at the very least, more protection.

I look forward to hearing some replies on this, as I would personally love to see Belcher back as a DTB. Storm combo is just getting old, and too many decks are preparing well for them.

[Moczoc]

I've played this deck alot, and i must say, it often sucked, but i always loved the Charbelcher. Its a seven-mana-headshot for you opponent that only forces you to play fewer land-cards.
Maybe the Goblin Charbelcher fits into a shell of a combodeck thats played recently .. as an oldschool wincondition that doesn't need counting your spells ;) I think I will do some testing.

[BoardinCharlie]

Possibly to speed up the deck a bit...has anyone tried Rite of Flame, the new mana accell from Coldsnap. It seems to be popping up in other combo decks and even gobbos. Any thoughts?

[kicks_422]

I've been using it in my build since CS came out. It's a great ritual alongside Dark and Cabal, and castable after a Tinder Wall sacrifice.

[Bane of the Living]

Does anyone have a nice list with it in place? I heard theyre printing ESG in red for a timeshifted card in PC. Im sure it have a place in the deck but does it replace ESG or get play along side it? How many?

[APriestOfGix]

for living wish builds w/ welders (mine) i like to have an ornithopter in the board, i very often go turn 1 welder, LED, turn 2 wish, thopper, play thopper, crack LED, discarding Belcher, win...

[APriestOfGix]

sorry foe the double post...


here is my current list, hasn't changes much as it's been working REALLY well...


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

// Lands
1 [A] Taiga
1 [A] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
3 [UL] Goblin Welder

// Spells
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [4E] Dark Ritual
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
3 [JU] Living Wish
4 [MR] Spoils of the Vault
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [US] Duress
4 [TSP] Chromatic Star
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [MM] Brainstorm - Changing to the Red ESG when PC come out...

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [UL] Goblin Welder
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 4 [DS] Oxidize
SB: 1 [9E] Viridian Shaman
SB: 3 [ON] Naturalize
SB: 1 [AQ] Ornithopter
SB: 1 [8E] City of Brass

[Alfred]

No Simian Spirit Guide? I know it hasn't come out yet, but it's free acceleration.

[xsockmonkeyx]

4 [MM] Brainstorm - Changing to the Red ESG when PC come out...

[Sugar Woof]

When Simian Spirit Guide comes out I don't think taking out all the brainstorms is the right thing to do. Yeah it's another free acceleration but power of brainstorm in the deck is too much to give up for another free accelerator. Yes I do agree that SSG should go in, but not taking out brainstroms, some combo of ESG/SSG would be the right amount. Back to brainstorm, I have no idea how many times that I've cracked sphere and brainstormed to draw into a win. Being able to do that is too good to take out.

[kicks_422]

I've been working on a build that runs both Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens as win conditions. It's been running smoothly, but with a few kinks that I'm trying to work out.

I don't use Cabal Rituals in the deck, as I've seen that when I hit threshold, I've probably already lost or won. I replaced them with Rite of Flames. I also run 4 each of ESG and SSG.

I'll post a list when I've figured out the best build for it.

[APriestOfGix]

first off, the amazing power of what belcher COULD do...


<-------- New Game Started -------->
Mikey McHogshorts's Security Code: CEAA0C80 [Type 1.5]
A Priest of Gix's Security Code: BAF14B62 [Type 1.5]
It is now turn 1 (A Priest of Gix)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
A Priest of Gix rolled a 20, using a 20 sided die
Mikey McHogshorts shuffles library
A Priest of Gix shuffles library
A Priest of Gix shuffles library
Mikey McHogshorts rolled a 10, using a 20 sided die
Mikey McHogshorts shuffles library
A Priest of Gix draws 7 cards
Mikey McHogshorts shuffles library
Mikey McHogshorts shuffles library
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
Mikey McHogshorts draws a card
<A Priest of Gix> keep
<Mikey McHogshorts> kp
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
A Priest of Gix plays Land Grant from Hand
Mikey McHogshorts is looking opponent's Hand...
A Priest of Gix puts Land Grant to Graveyard from Play
A Priest of Gix is looking its Library...
A Priest of Gix puts Bayou into play from Library
A Priest of Gix shuffles library
A Priest of Gix stops looking its Library...
A Priest of Gix plays Lion's Eye Diamond from Hand
A Priest of Gix taps Bayou
A Priest of Gix plays Duress from Hand
<A Priest of Gix> ...
<System> Player Lost




I am going to pull 2 ESG for SSG as they arn't really all that good. Belcher has a fine time w/ mana, it's finding the belcher that i have trouble with, so kicks is right the brainstorm stay...

[Sugar Woof]

As my post said earlier, I'll keep brainstorm and my build will probably have something like 3 ESG/2 SSG or 4/1 depending on how testing goes. As of lately I've been testing out a non living wish build but I don't have enough results yet to determine anything but I'll be back with them later.

[APriestOfGix]

i think the SSG could go in for Cabal Therapy, as it's 2 mana, and almsot never cast w/ thresh.

[DeathwingZERO]

I believe you meant Cabal Ritual. Anyways, I personally don't see either way what reasoning there is to care about whether or not you play 4 ESG or 4 SSG. They're essentially the same card, as rarely you will ever need green or red.

I'm still seeing lists with Brainstorms though, yet nothing running more than 4 Spoils of the Vault. Did anyone bother reading the post I had? A card only drawing into 3 and putting 2 back with only minimal (Land Grant) shuffle effects is horrible for your consistency issues, and that's the decks only losing point.

Has anyone been testing anymore of the tutors suggested? Better yet, why don't you put up some goldfish information with the listed decks, and at least show some defense for Brainstorm over the much better use of tutors. As I said before, this deck looks like it's gained nothing over 2 years worth of cards (with the exception of Infernal Tutor and Grim Tutor), and I highly doubt that's really going to change.

Also, has anyone done any real playtesting versus the Top 3? Any idea how to race Solidarity's option of Brain Freeze'ing your kill away on turn 2, or maybe Thresh's FoW and Daze early game?

[kicks_422]

I run 4 Xantid Swarm MD and 4 Defense Grid SB, along with 4 Shattering Spree. I'm not afraid of Mage as I have a back-up win in Empty the Warrens.

Against Thresh and Solidarity (against anything with FoW, except Faerie Stompy), I side out 4 ESG for 4 Defense Grid. Against Goblins, I side out the Swarms for 4 Shattering Spree.

[BreathWeapon]

I believe you meant Cabal Ritual. Anyways, I personally don't see either way what reasoning there is to care about whether or not you play 4 ESG or 4 SSG. They're essentially the same card, as rarely you will ever need green or red.

I'm still seeing lists with Brainstorms though, yet nothing running more than 4 Spoils of the Vault. Did anyone bother reading the post I had? A card only drawing into 3 and putting 2 back with only minimal (Land Grant) shuffle effects is horrible for your consistency issues, and that's the decks only losing point.

Has anyone been testing anymore of the tutors suggested? Better yet, why don't you put up some goldfish information with the listed decks, and at least show some defense for Brainstorm over the much better use of tutors. As I said before, this deck looks like it's gained nothing over 2 years worth of cards (with the exception of Infernal Tutor and Grim Tutor), and I highly doubt that's really going to change.

Also, has anyone done any real playtesting versus the Top 3? Any idea how to race Solidarity's option of Brain Freeze'ing your kill away on turn 2, or maybe Thresh's FoW and Daze early game?

Empty the Warrens, Infernal Tutor, Right of Flame and Simian Spirit Guide are all major additions to the deck; the difference between ESG and SSG is astronomical, because one resolves Xantid Swarm, the other resolves Goblins Welder, one imprints Green on Chrome Mox, one imprints Red on Chrome Mox, one resolves Tinder Wall and the other resolves Right of Flame and Seething Song.

SSG, Right of Flame and Seething Song is one of the best acceleration packages available, and it wouldn't be possible with out SSG producing Red instead of Green.

People also need to step back and reconsider their design, Infernal Tutor and Plunge into Darkness are the cornerstones of this deck; the first for having synergy with Lion's Eye Diamond and the second for giving the deck an Impulse/Spoils of the Vault effect that can find either Goblin Charbelcher or Empty the Warrens with out RFGing yourself.

[kicks_422]

All the cards you mentioned are in my build, except Seething Song and Goblin Welder. I didn't need him anymore after ETW was fit into the deck.

It works like a charm, with the occasional bad hand. Hey, any combo deck gets that...

[Bryant Cook]

I love how the deck is beginning to look more and more like TES, Infernal, Rite of Flame, ETW I'm just waiting for the singleton MD Tendrils of Agony ;p.
I think the direction that Kicks422 is taking is probably the best option seeing as the list posted above was old and outdated.

[BreathWeapon]

Is there a reason to MD Xantid Swarm over Duress? Duress gives the deck additional black cards to Imprint to Chrome Mox, it removes Force of Will and Counterspell, it removes them on the same turn as comboing out, and it doesn't let the opponent use his Swords to Plowshares to bring his Force of Will back online.

Xantid Swarm seems better in the SB, where it can capitalize on the opponent SBing out his creature removal; similar to Dark Confidant.

Is Living Wish still worth consideration? Goblin Welder, Xantid Swarm, Dark Confidant, Ancient Tomb, City of Brass, remove based creatures and alternate win conditions don't seem that bad.

Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony isn't a bad idea, either in the MD or the SB, the deck has Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond, more acceleration than TES or IGGY, and it avoids hate designed for Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens. Vintage Belcher used a singleton Tendrils for the same reasons, it just costs us an additional MD slot.

[kicks_422]

@wastedlife: I also tried out Tendrils as a back-up. It wasn't any good, as the deck rarely ups the storm to 10. ETW is perfect though, as a storm of 5-7ish is already a good one. Plus you can't ignore the flavor of having Goblins along with their Charbelcher... :tongue:

@Breathweapon: MD Xantid Swarm over Duress for the same reasons in TES. Duress takes out only one counter, Swarm nullifies all. If they StP it, that's fine by me... But if they actually dug for the card, then that's something that I'd like to see, opponents scrambling for creature removal against combo.

My next step in the deck is trying to incorporate Living Wish. I might cut mana producers for it though, as the list is so tight...

EDIT: Here's a roughly optimal decklist (well, at least for me).

1 Bayou
1 Taiga

4 Xantid Swarm

4 Land Grant
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 ESG
2 SSG

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Living Wish

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens

SB
4 Defense Grid
4 Shattering Spree
1 Gemstone Mine
1 SSG
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Ghost-Lit Raider
1 Wild Cantor
1 Priest of Gix

The last 3 cards in the SB I'm not sure of. The Raider I figured would be good uncounterable Mage removal which doesn't need Threshold, though the 3R needed is pretty high. The last two I threw in for Storm coun purposes, though I've never actually Wished for them yet.

I just finished a match against Solidarity, 2-0. First game, I laid 8 Goblins Turn 1. He tried Turnabout two straight turns, but I laid a Belcher FTW on the following turn. Second game, went like this:

Turn 1: Bayou, Lotus Petal, Defense Grid (he actually conceded after this, as he said he had no land)
Turn 2 (would have been): Chrome Mox imprinting Spoils, LED, LED, tap Mox for Spoils for Belcher, sac 2 LED while on stack (floating 6), cast Belcher (6 cards away), tap Bayou FTW.

Nice, huh? :tongue:

Oh, and as for Spoils vs. Plunge again. In TES, it's used as a cantrip, as the whole deck is designed to combo off no matter what pieces you have in and (though I still use Spoils in TES - what can I say, I'm a risk-taker... :tongue:), but here, what we need is a tutor.

4 Spoils could go for 4 Plunge though, if necessary.

[BreathWeapon]

Goblin Welder is just as good as Xantid Swarm in the MD against counterspells, and he also allows the deck to accelerate out Goblin Charbelcher with Lion's Eye Diamond or recur Goblin Charbelcher after a removal card. Xantid Swarm is going to slow this deck down, because instead of casting Goblin Charbelcher first and testing the waters for Force of Will, the deck casts Xantid Swarm, waits a turn and gets Pithing Needled.

Plunge into Darkness is better than Spoils of the Vault, because Plunge into Darkness can find either Empty the Warrens or Goblin Charbelcher. If the deck relied on Goblin Charbelcher to win, I would agree with you, but Empty the Warrens or Tendrils of Agony are just as good.

Have you tried using 4 SSG and 4 Seething Song instead of 4 ESG and 4 Tinder Wall?

The Living Wish SB should have a Xantid Swarm, Goblin Welder, Dark Confidant, Ancient Tomb, City of Brass an alternate win condition (Minion of the Wastes) and removal (that G, G/Tap sacrifice to destroy an artifact guy) before anything else.

This is the rough shell I have,

4 Goblin Charbelcher

1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Empty the Warrens

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Plunge into Darkness

4 Unmask (could be Cabal Therapy)
4 Duress

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

4 Seething Song
4 Right of Flame
4 Dark Ritual

4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

I'm using Duress and Unmask to protect Land Grant from counterspells and Empty the Warrens from mass removal and to imprint black mana on Chrome Mox. The manabase is shifted towards red, so all of the acceleration can chain except for Dark Ritual.

Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony are place holders for better cards, if anything they belong in the SB.

[Bane of the Living]

When I was playing the deck I liked Tinder Wall alot as an answer to Lackey. It also killed a couple Meddling Mages who's owners were dumb enough to attack it. Its great with Therapy as well.

[APriestOfGix]

im adding SSG and Infernal Tutor to my list above for Cabal Ritual and Brainstorm...


i'll play 50 MWS games and let you all know how it goes...

[APriestOfGix]

doing well, so far i like the changes...


here is one good example of infernal tutor...


Board: Welder, Tinder Wall, Mox, Lotus Petal, Tiaga, Bayou

Hand: Spoils, Tutor

Play: I play spoils for LED, grab the LED, play tutor for Belcher, grab belcher, crack LED discarding belcher, have BBB in pool, weld mox into a belcher, belch FTW...


I really love the welders, they help abuse the LED's really well...


I also love the tutors emptying hand is really easy, and i founf you can cast the tutor THEN LED, and the hellbent is found on RESOLUTION so you have no hand, and get to tutor up anything.

[DeathwingZERO]

Empty the Warrens, Infernal Tutor, Right of Flame and Simian Spirit Guide are all major additions to the deck; the difference between ESG and SSG is astronomical, because one resolves Xantid Swarm, the other resolves Goblins Welder, one imprints Green on Chrome Mox, one imprints Red on Chrome Mox, one resolves Tinder Wall and the other resolves Right of Flame and Seething Song.

SSG, Right of Flame and Seething Song is one of the best acceleration packages available, and it wouldn't be possible with out SSG producing Red instead of Green.

People also need to step back and reconsider their design, Infernal Tutor and Plunge into Darkness are the cornerstones of this deck; the first for having synergy with Lion's Eye Diamond and the second for giving the deck an Impulse/Spoils of the Vault effect that can find either Goblin Charbelcher or Empty the Warrens with out RFGing yourself.

Personally, I think ETW is utter garbage for this deck. Your missing the entire basis of the deck, it packed speed in place of consistency. This came down to Belcher being the only deck in Legacy history that had a better chance of going off turn 1 than even BUG Dragon. I would never play the deck and pass the turn with nothing but some 1/1's on the table, especially against anything in the top 2 tiers.

Infernal Tutor is probably going to be the MVP of this deck, as it's common play was getting to 0 cards almost always in the first turn. That card I say should be an auto 4 of in any version of Belcher, as it's arguably better than Spoils in the case it's worst case scenario means your going to get a duplicate piece of acceleration, or a second Belcher for a backup kill, and it doesn't risk the autoloss of 10% that Spoils did.

ESG, Rite of Flame, etc.........red was nothing more than a splash color. This isn't Randomstorm.dec, we don't need this many acceleration pieces. The deck WINS on 7 mana, ALL of which is colorless. The only thing we need is an active LED, and 4 mana to get to belcher. This requires a solid fix of black, as that's our tutorbase, and most reliable of the accelerants: Dark Ritual. You could even completely cut out red if your running Welderless, as the only other card the deck had that was red was Gamble, and many people ditched it, because it was crap. The deck already had problems with Graveyard hate when it relies heavily on Welder, this means Rite of Flame is yet another garbage accelerant here, much like Cabal Ritual un-threshed. Not worth the time, especially when your barely putting anything in the graveyard.

There's 2 lands in the deck that you have over 40% chance of ripping out turn 1, along with 4 Chromes which can imprint anything, and 4 Lotus Petals. Turn 1 is still as consistent as ever, especially if you strip it back to a G/B build like it always was. If anything, run Culling of the Weak in addition to Tinder Wall, Xantid and Welder, at least that's more reliable, and on color.

Also, Duress vs Xantid almost always came down to 4 MD Duress, and 4 SB Xantid Swarm (if any). The only time you'll ever want Xantid over Duress is if your forced to be the combo/control deck, which Belcher doesn't EVER do. The deck is built on never wanting to pass that first turn, let alone anything requiring you to swing (Much like why ETW is such a bad backup card). The only reason Xantid was ever really good was because it was a must-counter for control decks if you have to pass the turn, while Duress is a must counter immediately, because they know if you Duress during a setup, chances are you have the win in hand. Even then, it's much easier to get to 2 colorless for Defense Grid than it is to consistently see G for Xantid.

All in all, the decks ratios are pretty simple. 4 MD win condition (Belcher), with 2-3 backup plans (Living Wish), and the rest all being a split between acceleration and tutorbase. 6-8 tutors is optimal, 10 if you can cut it. That leaves the deck with a manabase of roughly 44-48 cards, depending on your protection numbers (mine was always just 4 Duress). Counting between LED, Chrome, Petal, Dark Ritual, Land Grant, Tinder Wall, Chromatic Sphere/Star (mana fix), Cabal Ritual.......that was always enough before.

[kicks_422]

I would never play the deck and pass the turn with nothing but some 1/1's on the table, especially against anything in the top 2 tiers.

Why not? When you plop down 10+ 1/1s on the board on Turn 1 or 2, what are Thresh, Solidarity, or Goblins going to do about it?

Knowing that you're a Belcher player, Thresh would wait to counter the Belcher, so ETW would surprise them. If they counter your acceleration once they know you're ramping it up for ETW, then it keeps your win pieces in your hand.

Solidarity would have to waste a High Tide into a Wish into Echoing Truth to bounce your tokens, giving enough time and tempo for you to go off again.

Goblins, since most are dropping their Sharpshooters from their build, just won't be able to block all those tokens.

[DeathwingZERO]

Why not? When you plop down 10+ 1/1s on the board on Turn 1 or 2, what are Thresh, Solidarity, or Goblins going to do about it?

Knowing that you're a Belcher player, Thresh would wait to counter the Belcher, so ETW would surprise them. If they counter your acceleration once they know you're ramping it up for ETW, then it keeps your win pieces in your hand.

Solidarity would have to waste a High Tide into a Wish into Echoing Truth to bounce your tokens, giving enough time and tempo for you to go off again.

Goblins, since most are dropping their Sharpshooters from their build, just won't be able to block all those tokens.

Actually, I've tested a lot with this, as I was attempting to play TES against the top 3, for the hell of it. You'd be surprised with the results about ETW, even people in the TES threads say that at times it's too sub-par for a combo deck.

Goblins really comes down to the situation at hand. I'll just leave examples: If you rush them, they can outplay you, especially since it'll take you a minimum of 2 full rushes to kill them. This comes down to Mogg Fanatics blocking and blowing up another hitter. Piledrivers, Siege Gangs, Warchiefs, and Ringleaders all being able to chump more than once, Matrons chumping and searching for answers, and AEther Vial or Lackey being able to drop a problem on you (Like a Lackey ability on stack, Vial'ing in Matron in response, and finding Pyromancer to blow yours up), and even the Sharpshooter in the sideboard in games 2 and 3. The original gameplan of "Belcher go boom" is what wins vs Goblins. Giving them turns is a very bad idea, especially when your 1/1s don't have abilities.

Solidarity would actually not even waste it's time. If you end up having a lethal attack, they have way more outs than just Echoing Truth, and your statement actually makes me wonder if you've played against Solidarity with ETW yet (no offense or flame intended, it's just a guess). My biggest plan against ETW (and any aggro for that matter) was not wasting a Wish, it was using Turnabout. So worst case scenario, on their turn 3 they go Tide-> Turnabout on your upkeep, Time Walking them into their 4th turn, allowing them to hit the lands to combo out before you do lethal damage the next time around. All the while they still have access to Remand and Force of Will, and Cunning Wish to stop whatever tricks you may pull in the meantime (Stifle, Rebuild, etc). While it is a pain in the ass to attempt it on 2 lands (if they're on the play), Solidarity still has the ability to attempt to combo out against you. In addition to all that, while your attempting to rebuild if they do Echoing Truth your Gobbos, they also have the ability to turn your constant casting of accelerants and tutors into a Brain Freeze that will leave you with little to nothing left in your library, which now kills off your main kill condition, or even kills you.

The versions of Thresh I play against around here all pack 3-4 Stifle, at least 2 in the MD, due to so many Storm decks. So if I were playing Belcher, it would be a given that they would be keeping those Stifle opening hands, regardless of what else is going on. If this is the case, you've wasted just as much acceleration on your two 1/1 goblins as you would have on your Belcher activation, and neither of them are good for you. On top of this, if all they have to do is get around your now 2 win conditions, all they do is Needle your Belcher, and call Empty the Warrens with their Mages. This now leaves you completely reliant on your Living Wishes to attempt to find an answer to either, which they can just counter. Thresh in my opinion is Belcher's absolute worst matchup of the top 3. It packs Crypt in SB, Needle, StP, and Mage maindeck, and has counterspells active from turn 0 on. There's really not much the deck can't do to cripple you.

ETW may work for you against a lot of the format. But consider this: Even when testing Tendrils of Agony (my buddy and I had 4 in the SB for a while, to put in games 2 and 3 against things with Mage, Null Rod etc), I found myself hating the idea of wasting nearly my entire hand on a spell that wouldn't win. It's just not Belcher's gameplan to get storm of 10, even with our tutor base being so high. Most of your decklists currently don't pack the ability to tutor into tutor into win/Ill Gotten Gains like IGGY Pop does, and your storm count will never reach 10 without tutor effects or card draw, or searching for multiple Tendrils for a double storm kill. Keep that in mind.

In no way am I saying that this means Belcher gets autoloss to any of these 3 decks. On the contrary. When it goes straight for the Belcher kill, it has amazing game against Solidarity, especially with MD Duress, and Goblins aren't as fast as you can be, your potential to go off turn 1 or 2 means they have absolutely nothing they can do to you, short of a random Tin Street Hooligan hitting a well placed artifact, or a Mogg Fanatic/Incinerator hitting your Welder. Thresh........well you'll have to play against the list my buddy has to see that matchup pan out, and I'll tell you from experience, it's a hell of a fight.

[BreathWeapon]

That has to be the worst line of logic I have ever read regarding ETW, it boils down to, " The opponent is going to have an answer for every card in my deck, every game, every time he is on the play."

There is nothing that Goblins can do against 10 1/1 tokens on the play or on the draw, he will lose so much card advantage, damage and tempo you can just rebuild your hand and either ETW or Tendrils for the win. I have never, ever lost a game in which I resolved 10 1/1 tokens on the first or second turn.

High Tide players have a hard time comboing off on turn 4, losing a High Tide and a Turnabout for a Time Walk isn't going to guarantee the opponent a GG. The odds of the opponent being able to race goblins are a lot less than the opponent being able to Force of Will or Remand an unprotected Infernal Tutor chain, and the odds of being able to race goblins shifts based on the play order, so you can take advantage of it by SBing in/out ETW/Grids if you want.

You have a 50/50 chance the Threshold player is using Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives, and in a large metagame, the likely hood is that their MD is prepared for Goblins.

TES players that discredit ETW in the MD are deluded, counterspells are a lot more terrifying than the mysterious mass removal/High Tide god hand every one seems to draw against you. As far as ETW in Belcher is concerned, it reduces mulligans, reduces reliance on tuturs, gives the deck a defense against counterspells and forces the opponent to divide his hate between ETW and Belcher. The chances the opponent can deal with ETW are a lot less than the chances it can deal with Belcher, and Null Rod, Pithing Needle and Naturalize etc. are just as bad as mass removal.

[DeathwingZERO]

That has to be the worst line of logic I have ever read regarding ETW, it boils down to, " The opponent is going to have an answer for every card in my deck, every game, every time he is on the play."

It's far from a matter of having an answer to every card in the deck, it's having an answer to a card in the deck that's nothing more than a crutch. A combo deck's basis is to WIN at the end of the combo. Storm decks are based around storm, and solely storm. Belcher, wins on ramming 20+ damage down your throat on a resolved Belcher with activation, on the SAME TURN. Even passing the turn with an offline Belcher has always been a risky move, why would you want something that'll take you two or more turns to accomplish (and with no guarantee to be lethal)? You are then literally at the mercy of your opponent, and your topdeck, two of the worst things a combo player has to face.


There is nothing that Goblins can do against 10 1/1 tokens on the play or on the draw, he will lose so much card advantage, damage and tempo you can just rebuild your hand and either ETW or Tendrils for the win. I have never, ever lost a game in which I resolved 10 1/1 tokens on the first or second turn.

So where do you suppose this "rebuilding" of your hand is coming from? Cause it's obviously not card advantage, when you play no draw. It's also not reliance on your tutors, because you play roughly 4, and the rest of the deck is acceleration, which is now dead. And why the hell would you play both Tendrils and ETW in a Belcher deck??? Go back to TES, please. It's literally what your trying to accomplish by merging this deck with that one, your basically admitting this deck's not as good as storm (which it isn't, hence why it hasn't put up numbers in years). It's seeming more and more obvious to me this deck isn't right for you. No insult intended, I'm just saying you seem to play like a storm player, not a Belcher one.

Goblins slowplays a turn 6-7 kill (aside from a garbage hand, which a good Goblin player would never keep against a combo deck), and by then usually has a swarm much higher than 10 1/1s can handle. There's plenty they can do. Like continue playing the game the regular way. Your 10 or so Goblins could possibly do 20 damage within 2 turns, but how often are you taking the time out to do a total war against them? The smart player in this case would hold a couple back in case of random power plays the Goblin player can pull off, which means now you've got 3+ turns your waiting to kill them with. This means you've passed the threshold of your power, giving them about 3 turns to build up an army, or chip away at your pieces with their own, creature for creature, if not more. Belcher has NO card advantage at this point, whereas Goblins packs 4 Ringleaders, and can search for them with anywhere from 2-4 Matrons, all of which can be cast or dropped as soon as turn 2 with Lackey, or turn 3 hardcast. Also, some of the "rogue" Goblin players still pack a maindeck Sharpshooter, which now clears the board on your side so they can throw their total war back at you. At this point, your still scrambling for a tutor to get your Belcher online, because you dumped your entire hand to get those Goblins out, while they did nothing but play normally, albiet more defensively. Don't think Goblins are nothing more than a stupid aggro deck, because that in itself would be your downfall. It's arguably the best creature based control deck we've got in the format.


High Tide players have a hard time comboing off on turn 4, losing a High Tide and a Turnabout for a Time Walk isn't going to guarantee the opponent a GG. The odds of the opponent being able to race goblins are a lot less than the opponent being able to Force of Will or Remand an unprotected Infernal Tutor chain, and the odds of being able to race goblins shifts based on the play order, so you can take advantage of it by SBing in/out ETW/Grids if you want.

High Tide's GOLDFISH is turn 4. It wants to hold out longer, but this is the golden number anyone playing will say "This is my minimum count for optimal speed". It's not "hard" at all at this point, especially when you've hit each of your land drops. And no, a High Tide into Turnabout isn't going to guarantee GG, I'll admit that, but it's going to stall you for another turn, giving them time (much like Goblins) to recoup from the "clock" they have to face, which should only be 1 turn. They already have a ton of hand sculpting abilities in addition to card draw, so pressed against the wall they could either go faster than you and attempt a turn 3-4 win, or slowplay the Cunning Wish route and reshape their hand after that. Either way, your always at severe card disadvantage against that deck, and that's the worst possible thing to be against Solidarity if you haven't already won. If your so worried about their 8 counterspell slots, then obviously play Duress. It wouldn't matter if ETW were a backup kill here anyways if you still get your tutor chains countered.


You have a 50/50 chance the Threshold player is using Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives, and in a large metagame, the likely hood is that their MD is prepared for Goblins.

Wouldn't the fact that their maindeck being built vs Goblins mean that it completely cripples your vanilla 1/1s? So StP is probably going to be useless. That much is true. Personally, I've never played an aggro deck up against Thresh, so I'm not certain about this one. All I know is that the deck already has access to Mage and Stifles, which both are very good at stopping this backup plan (and the main one, forcing you to rely on Welder), and this deck will get card advantage on you in the meantime, much like Solidarity. I doubt that ETW is going to change your matchups against this deck much.


TES players that discredit ETW in the MD are deluded, counterspells are a lot more terrifying than the mysterious mass removal/High Tide god hand every one seems to draw against you. As far as ETW in Belcher is concerned, it reduces mulligans, reduces reliance on tuturs, gives the deck a defense against counterspells and forces the opponent to divide his hate between ETW and Belcher. The chances the opponent can deal with ETW are a lot less than the chances it can deal with Belcher, and Null Rod, Pithing Needle and Naturalize etc. are just as bad as mass removal.

Actually I disagree with the statement of reducing mulligans completely. The card is 4 mana, just like Belcher. Unlike Belcher, however, this card relies on an abundance of spells being tossed from your opening hand, to throw out Goblins that will take a minimum of 2 turns to kill your opponent. At the same time, Belcher can be reactivated each turn as long as you have 3 mana in play. So with ETW you've effectively wasted 4-6 cards on a possible turn 3 kill (assuming nothing is played), rather than just finding your Belcher asap and blowing it up. ETW says, on the other hand, that when all is said and done, your left with your little army of red men, and are relying completely on these guys to push your damage through.


As far as ETW in Belcher is concerned, it reduces mulligans, reduces reliance on tuturs, gives the deck a defense against counterspells and forces the opponent to divide his hate between ETW and Belcher. The chances the opponent can deal with ETW are a lot less than the chances it can deal with Belcher....

Then play storm. It's that simple. As far as Belcher is concerned, number 1 rule is "Kill on turn 1, if not, setup for kill on turn 2". This means you mulligain aggressively, and you play to get Belcher lethal. You don't sit on creatures in a combo deck, you kill as quickly as possible. If you want defense vs counterspells, rely on your maindeck Xantid Swarm (which is also slow as far as Belcher is concerned), or maindeck Duress/Cabal Therapy. 4 slots in Belcher is not hard in the least bit to come up with. And it's not a matter of them dealing with ETW. They can deal with these vanilla Goblins pretty easily, because Gobs are the easiest of the 3 top decks to hate out. At this point you play right into their maindeck hate, and all they have to worry about then is keeping Belcher offline. You may turn some sideboard cards dead, but chances are you've made more maindeck cards active.

On top of all this, how is a storm card going to reduce your reliance on tutors? If you don't have this or Belcher in your opening hand (assuming 4 copies of ETW are played to maximize chances of seeing either, your still looking at 1 in 5 opening hands that you won't see either, much less if you are only running 2-3 copies of ETW), you still need to mulligan to see either, ore rely on tutors. At least with more tutors your consistency rate goes up, rather than a sub-par win condition that requires more commitment than the maindeck win condition.


....and Null Rod, Pithing Needle and Naturalize etc. are just as bad as mass removal.

Funny, all it took to kill off Belcher in addition to it's lack of consistency was the inclusion of Null Rod into deck sideboards. It's the easiest combo deck so far to hate against, hands down. Here your backup plan is playing a storm spell, of which a lot of people are expecting, due to numbers IGGY, Solidarity, and now on occasions TES are showing. Seems like your falling into the same trap most combo players are, storm is just too enticing of a mechanic to pass up.

Also how can you knock on mass removal being bad if you've wasted practically your entire opening hand for them to toss one card at you? You've now commited so much to ETW that ANY mass removal spells are now completely active cards, when they were once dead. The field is aggro oriented, the point of combo was to play around that, and to be faster than aggro decks clocks. If we see decks like Farie Stompy, Goblins, and Thresh seal/control games quickly (turn 4-5, on the average), then combo should kill faster than that, with absolute minimal "ground" interference.

[APriestOfGix]

FREAK WIZARDS!!!

Extirpate - B

Split-Second
Own Belcher w/o the chance to even welder the belcher out of the way. :(


does belcher need and answer, or is the chance of the card being played low (as it hurts only a few decks) and not needed to worry about?

(im guessing it's not option 2...)

[Lego]

@ Extirpate: There are very few decks that are going to play this maindeck. Of those that do, they have to have it in-hand, and be given at least a turn to play a land. Then they have to keep open the mana to play it, meaning no first turn play. Belcher is built to go off on turn 1 or turn 2, meaning they've had one or two turns maximum to play, and the ideal for most decks is to play something in those turns. Chances are they won't know your deck, and so probably won't be keeping mana open for Extirpate. We can also assume that very few decks are going to sideboard it, but if they do, they'll have to bring in 4 for it to be relevant.

The thing about it is that they need to mulligan into it, and they need to have mana open to play it. This means that it will only be an effective sideboard answer (otherwise they won't know they need it until after they've lost, and they probably won't happen to keep mana open for it unless you combo pretty slowly,) and if you've won game 1 it will have minimal post-board impact. It's pretty much exactly as effective as Pithing Needle, but will see a lot less play.

The thing about Belcher is that it goes off on turn 1 or 2. That doesn't give people a lot of time to find their answers. The problem with it is that if it doesn't go off on 1 or 2, you probably lose. That's just what you get when you play the deck.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that if you play the Belcher and activate it, Extirpate is completely useless. So yeah, much worse than Pithing Needle.

[DeathwingZERO]

Extirpate should do absolutely nothing to the main function of the deck, being "Get Belcher on table with 3 open mana".

The only thing it does now is kill off your reliance on Welder, which in all honesty, wouldn't be a horrible thing at all. Worst case scenario, if it forced you to take out red completely, and disregard Welder as a great backup plan, it'd streamline this deck way more anyways, being a B/G deck, with the ability to pack in more maindeck hate of it's own (like discard).

But as stated, it's really no better than Pithing Needle. The Needle can hit your Welder and Belcher while their in play, and you then have to rely on a Living Wish to go get your artifact hate creature of choice. If Extirpate randomly hits your Belcher, you can either try to get a fatty from Wish, or just scoop and go to next game, prepared for that scenario.

[Lego]

If Extirpate randomly hits your Belcher, you can either try to get a fatty from Wish, or just scoop and go to next game, prepared for that scenario.

Or win with EtW.

[APriestOfGix]

EtW sucks, plain and simple, i think the fatty plan would actually work better even w/ STP since they side it out very often.

Although that means you would have to find a good fatty for cheap, and that has a draw back you don't care about...

Anyone have any ideas?

[kicks_422]

Tomb of Urami as a Living Wish target?...

[APriestOfGix]

possible, actually im going to test that...

[DeathwingZERO]

Actually one of the most stable win conditions that the deck used to have in it's sideboard in case trouble happened with control decks was Troll Ascetic. Untargetable, on color, and regenerates. Blastoderm was also good as a fattie, or Hunted Wumpus (I've tried him a few times in the past, he was especially good against combo decks).

Unfortunately if you need a "win quick" scenario on the cheap, you probably won't be seeing much better than Tomb or Negator.

And yes, EtW is still a horrible, horrible card.

[CalebD]

Goblin Welder is just as good as Xantid Swarm in the MD against counterspells, and he also allows the deck to accelerate out Goblin Charbelcher with Lion's Eye Diamond or recur Goblin Charbelcher after a removal card. Xantid Swarm is going to slow this deck down, because instead of casting Goblin Charbelcher first and testing the waters for Force of Will, the deck casts Xantid Swarm, waits a turn and gets Pithing Needled.

-Welder can get needled
-Welder is vulnerable to md meta sillyness like wretch/tormod's crypt/Leyline.

-Stifle an Xantid Swarm and you haven't lost anything. Stifle a welder after an LED sacrifice and you've lost your belcher.

Not that I'm recomending Xantid swarm, either. TES can run the flyer better since they have 11 stable mana source md, as well as the artifact mana. We can't afford to waste spells putting the xantid in play.


I'm still seeing lists with Brainstorms though, yet nothing running more than 4 Spoils of the Vault. Did anyone bother reading the post I had? A card only drawing into 3 and putting 2 back with only minimal (Land Grant) shuffle effects is horrible for your consistency issues, and that's the decks only losing point.

Living wish-wooded foothills gave me more shuffle effects, as well as better belches. Not a necessity, but I thought it was good in brainstorm versions.

My experiences w/ Brainstorm have been nearly always good, especially if your hand is clogged with tutors/belchers and you need some accelleration. It also is ok at finding said tutors/belchers, helps protect against discard and is never a dead card (like welder.)


A combo deck's basis is to WIN at the end of the combo. Storm decks are based around storm, and solely storm. Belcher, wins on ramming 20+ damage down your throat on a resolved Belcher with activation, on the SAME TURN.

You could say the same thing replacing Tendrils of Agony for Belcher, and you'd still be wrong. 14 1/1's can win the game just as well. It makes the deck more versatile, and versatility wins games. What are you going to do when the opponent goes turn one chalice for zero, pithing needle on belcher? You're going to ritual up a small army of 1/1's to smash face with, obv.

I'm disgusted that people are discussing the goblins matchup. It doesn't matter if EtW is good/bad against goblins, it's not FOR goblins. Belcher is for goblins, and it's all you need against them.


It's not "hard" at all at this point, especially when you've hit each of your land drops. And no, a High Tide into Turnabout isn't going to guarantee GG, I'll admit that, but it's going to stall you for another turn, giving them time (much like Goblins) to recoup from the "clock" they have to face, which should only be 1 turn.

Yes... because solidarity will always be able to go high tide +Turnabout on turn 3... always... and still combo out on turn 4...

The majority of the time, they needed either that high tide, or that turnabout, and now have stalled themselves the one turn you needed to kill them.



So StP is probably going to be useless. That much is true.

Not unless you rely on extremely fragile goblin welders to allow them to have an outlet for their creature kill. Of course, no one would be that stupi...


(and the main one, forcing you to rely on Welder.)

... well, I digress.


Actually I disagree with the statement of reducing mulligans completely. The card is 4 mana, just like Belcher.

Belcher, against some decks, costs 7. Anyone who has tested enough knows this.


They can deal with these vanilla Goblins pretty easily, because Gobs are the easiest of the 3 top decks to hate out.

As the belcher player, I'm pretty happy when my opponents start siding in engineered plague.


Seems like your falling into the same trap most combo players are, storm is just too enticing of a mechanic to pass up.

Because it wins? Yes, those silly combo players, playing mechanics that win the game for them.


Also how can you knock on mass removal being bad if you've wasted practically your entire opening hand for them to toss one card at you? .

Because mass removal may or may not be in their md, and if it is it may not be in their hand, and if it is in their hand it may not be relevant, and if it is then they may not be able to play it. WoG, Disk cost 4. The most effective, Pyroclasm, isn't even seen in the majority of the burn decks, and is almost never seen as a 4 of.

Even if they do manage to drop some mass removal, if you've managed a single swing of tokens then you've dropped the necessary storm count for a tendrils kill quite a heap.

This is my build, I'll probably be playing it at the GP.

// Lands
1 [A] Taiga
1 [R] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
1 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [9E] Seething Song
4 [TSP] Chromatic Star
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MM] Land Grant
3 [VI] Helm of Awakening
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [AL] Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 [FD] Channel the Suns
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [OD] Firebolt
SB: 1 [US] Duress
SB: 1 [OD] Simplify

[BreathWeapon]

This is the build that won 1st and 2nd place at the Quebec PTQ,

CRET Belcher

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

Sideboard:
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Cave-In
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify

Notice it has 7 ETW, 3 MD ETW, 1 SB ETW and 4 MD Burning Wish, the same configuration I suggested on TMD, and it has no tutors or disruption for Belcher; that's how good ETW is in this deck.

I'd cut the Dark Ritual for Living Wish, Wild Cantor for 3 Goblin Welder and 4th Tinder Wall and the Bayou for Taiga in the MD; the SB needs a complete over haul, but the Pyrokinesis/Cave-In addition is pretty ingenious.

[revenge_inc]

This is the build that won 1st and 2nd place at the Quebec PTQ.

GPT not PTQ

[CalebD]

and it has no tutors or disruption for Belcher; that's how good ETW is in this deck.

Infernal tutor in the sb makes burning wish = 4x tutor. There's also a duress there, so there is some protection as well.



I'd cut the Dark Ritual for Living Wish, Wild Cantor for 3 Goblin Welder and 4th Tinder Wall and the Bayou for Taiga in the MD; the SB needs a complete over haul, but the Pyrokinesis/Cave-In addition is pretty ingenious.

There's already a Taiga in the MD.

Although it's tempting to run both living and burning wish, it doesn't work out that well. I tested it for a long time, but in the end it doesn't do more for you than Burning wish, and most of the time it does less. Also, with two types of wishes your Infernal Tutors become infinately worse, although this list doesn't run them md. (living wish+city of traitors with a helm in play is like casting a colorless rite though...)

Cutting Dark ritual is also not a good idea. Ever.

Wild Cantor is in the deck as a mana fixer. Since the deck doesn't care that much about turn 2, replacing its mana cost is better than drawing an extra card.

Goblin Welder would be a bad addition as well, for the reason stated above. This build does not want to see turn two.

And what the devil is wrong with his sb?

[Happy Gilmore]

This is the build that won 1st and 2nd place at the Quebec PTQ,

CRET Belcher

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

Sideboard:
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Cave-In
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify

Notice it has 7 ETW, 3 MD ETW, 1 SB ETW and 4 MD Burning Wish, the same configuration I suggested on TMD, and it has no tutors or disruption for Belcher; that's how good ETW is in this deck.

I'd cut the Dark Ritual for Living Wish, Wild Cantor for 3 Goblin Welder and 4th Tinder Wall and the Bayou for Taiga in the MD; the SB needs a complete over haul, but the Pyrokinesis/Cave-In addition is pretty ingenious.

Is there a link to the T8 decklists somewhere?

[ins0mniaque]

Hi, first post, I'm the one who made it 1st @ the Quebec GPT with CRET Belcher.


This build does not want to see turn two.

True. The whole deck is designed to try to be as broken as possible on turn 1. Some "staple" cards in other belcher lists have not made the cut because of this. Things like Chromatic Star, Welders, Living Wishes, Helms, Cabal Ritual were all too slow/hard to cast. Chromatic Star also has bad synergy with Chrome Mox. The reason why there is only 3 Tinder Walls in the deck is because it's not that hard to get 1 green mana on turn 1, but getting 2 is rare. Because of this, having 2 Tinder Walls in your starting hand mostly said that it was a 6 card hand.


Infernal tutor in the sb makes burning wish = 4x tutor. There's also a duress there, so there is some protection as well.

Infernal Tutor in sideboard is mainly for EtW. Why you might say ? Because to do Wish -> Tutor -> Belcher you need 11 mana. The deck rarely produce 11 mana, but often produces 8 mana. 8 mana = Wish -> Tutor -> EtW, producing an often needed additional 2 tokens. If you don't believe it, goldfish the deck trying to always go off on turn 1.


I'd cut the Dark Ritual for Living Wish, Wild Cantor for 3 Goblin Welder and 4th Tinder Wall and the Bayou for Taiga in the MD; the SB needs a complete over haul, but the Pyrokinesis/Cave-In addition is pretty ingenious.

Cutting Dark Ritual, the most broken accelerant after LED ? +2 mana is incredibly good.
Welders are slow, and are our only targets for creature removal, and the format has a lot of those (same goes Xantid Swarm).
Pyrokinesis is not in SB because it is an instant.

Most cards that breaks our deck are blue (FoW, Stifle)/artifacts (Rod/CotV/Needle/Sphere). This explains the 5 REB/4 Spree sideboard choices. Against deck that packs Rod/CotV/Needle, you SB 3 spree in, leaving you with 7 cards that are/get the Spree. If the deck packs Spheres, then you better kill on turn one, because a resolved sphere probably means you lost the game.

Anyway, this deck is a blast to play, without any card drawing, your hand is probably 90% of what you will play this game. Learning to mulligan is really important. I invite you to try and goldfish it.



JP
-- Team CRET --

[Eldariel]

Care to write a quick tourney report? At least of what you played against? It'd be very interesting to know.

[Seraphim]

where is everyone getting GPT decklists? I am having difficulty finding anything even remotely discussing them :rolleyes:

[Happy Gilmore]

where is everyone getting GPT decklists? I am having difficulty finding anything even remotely discussing them :rolleyes:

This is all word of mouth, none of the GPTs from last weekend have been posted as of yet.

[ins0mniaque]

Care to write a quick tourney report? At least of what you played against? It'd be very interesting to know.

I would if I remembered most of it, but as it is tradition for Team CRET, we were all high and wasted, smoking Js between each round. But I will post the top 8.

Our metagame is mostly aggro, and few players play Legacy around here, so we were only 22, a 5 round tournament.

Top 8 (The order for 4 to 8 might not be exact...)
1. CRET Belcher (Me)
2. CRET Belcher (MacRae, my teammate)
3. UW-Fish (Fleuvant, with Needles, FoW, Disenchant, 4x Stifle + Trickbind...)
4. BW-Confidant (Lior)
5. RW-Goblins (Sebastien)
6. Aggro Loam
7. Affinity
8. Raise the alarm.dec (lol)
9. CRET Belcher (Ugo Rivard, too bad he didn't make top 8)

[Eldariel]

Just what you played against for the rounds would be interesting, even if you remember absolutely no game details. But of course, if you don't remember that either, oh well ^^' And thanks for the Top 8.

[ins0mniaque]

Just what you played against for the rounds would be interesting, even if you remember absolutely no game details. But of course, if you don't remember that either, oh well ^^' And thanks for the Top 8.

I can try... ;) It's mostly the first 3 rounds that are "hazy"...

Round 1: Played against a good player that played U/R something, he did play FoW and Pyroclasm. I remember seeing a first turn Wooded Foothills thinking I had an easy matchup, but then fetched into Volcanic Island and Brainstorm in response to my first turn Seething Song, unfortunatly for him not finding a FoW. I also remember getting 12 tokens blasted away by a Pyroclasm, but winning with Belcher 2-3 turns later.

Sideboard plan: -3x Tinder Wall, -1 Wild Cantor, -1 ESG, +4x Pyroblast, +1 REB

Round 2: Draw against Ugo Rivard, a teammate.

Round 3: Fleuvant with MD 4x Stifle, FoW, Disenchant and some Needles and Trickbind in sideboard... He won the match on game three after having stifled/trickbinded my Belcher 3 times in a row, topdecking every ****ing turn, then topdecked a disenchant FTW (and I still had the mana to activated it a 4th time).

Sideboard plan: -3x Tinder Wall, -1 Wild Cantor, -1 ESG, +4x Pyroblast, +1 REB

Round 4: B/W confidant aggro discard thing. I won game 1, then game 2 by pure luck, I had 7 cards in hand, no permanants except a LED, no kill, he attacks with 2 Hypnotic Specter, chains with a Hymn to Tourach, leaving my hand with Land Grant, Dark Ritual and ESG... and I topdeck Belcher.

Round 5: Don't remember, but I win.

Top 8: B/W confidant aggro again. I win even more easily than in swiss.

Top 4: A land deck, waited for belcher both games and won easily.

Finals: CRET Belcher! I want to split, but my teammate wants to play it. He wins the dice roll, goes for tokens, I go for belcher and win. Game 2, he belches me on turn 2, but unfortunatly hits Taiga after 5 cards, I Burning Wish for Spree, kills the belcher, the Wish for EtW and kill him.


That's mostly what I remember.

[Eldariel]

That's more than enough, thanks ^^ I just wanted to know, what kinds of decks you beat. It's rather impressive that you went on to win after getting paired against two FoW.decs and two BW Confidants, all combo-killer decks (losing only one to boot).

[aTn]

Round 1: Played against a good player that played U/R something


Thanks for the compliment JP ;) I was playing UGr-Thresh. I managed to lose a game with Needle naming Belcher in play and 1 Pyroclasm in hand (which was eventually played to destroy 12 tokens, only to find my opponent refilling the land with little red men two turns later, damn that high percentage of acceleration in the deck). All to show that the deck is resiliant to hate. Not all Legacy decks can handle turn 0 pressure (when on the draw and relying only on FoW).

What impressed me the most was watching the deck win two matches against Deadguy and beat a UW-Fish deck running 4 Meddling Mage, 4 Fow, 4 Daze, 4 Stifle, x Needles, y Trickbinds (post-side), z Disenchants. Just nuts ! I'll definitly test the deck more and learn to play it/against it.

Anyways, these were my two cents.

[Happy Gilmore]

It never occurred to me the amount of Red rituals out there. I like the list and I will be testing it for sure. 2 different win conditions is extremely solid.
With all the viable combo running it should be an interesting GP to say the least. It also is not looking like a good metagame for Solidarity. Combo (extremely fast combo) and Thresh/Fish/Countersliver is going to be everywhere I bet.

[Soto]

Round 5: Don't remember, but I win.



Yo that was me (soto). I was playing Red Death and beat him because of my fast clock and he couldn't go off fast enough. Second game i forgot to side in Engineered Plague and he just covered me with goblins (my only blockers were 2 rotting giants but without any cards in graveyard. Third match i got the engineered plague in my hand but i didn't get to 3 mana to use it.

This deck is ridiculously fast and gets turn 1-3 wins very often if not "always".

[ins0mniaque]

Thanks for the compliment JP ;)

Np, nice to see that you post here.


Not all Legacy decks can handle turn 0 pressure (when on the draw and relying only on FoW).

In fact, even decks that do play FoW, and have it in their first hand doesn't mean you are safe... The question is always what do you counter (unless my plan includes casting Land Grant, but I try to avoid Land Grant as much as possible against FoW)... do you counter the 3rd-4th spell that give me access to 4 mana (preventing a deadly EtW), or do you hope I have Wish or Belcher in hand ? If you do counter the mana spell, my kill spell is still in my hand, possibly with 1-2 accel left, which means I will probably get that mana back in 2-3 turns, but leaving you with a 5 cards starting hand. If you do wait and I had EtW, well too bad for you!

This deck is plain broken; they have printed a bit too much acceleration for the format.

[ins0mniaque]

Yo that was me (soto). I was playing Red Death and beat him because of my fast clock and he couldn't go off fast enough. Second game i forgot to side in Engineered Plague and he just covered me with goblins (my only blockers were 2 rotting giants but without any cards in graveyard. Third match i got the engineered plague in my hand but i didn't get to 3 mana to use it.

I remember now. But I remember that first game you did remove my kill condition from my hand with an Hymn to Tourach on turn 1 and then your clock was fast enough that I didn't draw a second one. And it's true that I got slightly lucky that you missed your 3rd land drop in game 3...

[Eldariel]

Np, nice to see that you post here.



In fact, even decks that do play FoW, and have it in their first hand doesn't mean you are safe... The question is always what do you counter (unless my plan includes casting Land Grant, but I try to avoid Land Grant as much as possible against FoW)... do you counter the 3rd-4th spell that give me access to 4 mana (preventing a deadly EtW), or do you hope I have Wish or Belcher in hand ? If you do counter the mana spell, my kill spell is still in my hand, possibly with 1-2 accel left, which means I will probably get that mana back in 2-3 turns, but leaving you with a 5 cards starting hand. If you do wait and I had EtW, well too bad for you!

It's usually correct to go after the Ritual leading to EtW, especially if that Ritual is of Seething Song-variety in a base-red Storm. Against base-black Storm, you can usually let them get away with it as they can't really play into their Tendrils without casting a counterable non-accelerant. Post-board, if you have Goblin-sweepers handy, feel free to let them go off at their leisure and rather focus on stopping their future attempts. But yea, the correct call depends on the present Storm-count. 6 Goblins is nothing to worry about for a fast hand, even just 1 bigger-than-1/1 can stop the army alone (you'd be at 5 after that). 8 Goblins begins to be borderline problematic and 10 tends to already require a real hand to deal with through traditional means.

I could see this being an interesting MU with Faerie Stompy. Pre-board Pithing Needle, Chalice and Force of Will (die roll is critical, turn 1 Chalice at 0 is an absolute bomb against you, especially coupled with the possible Force of Will), post-board Engineered Explosives and extra Needles added to the mix. I dunno if the deck is exactly too broken, but it looks very solid. People need to prepare for Goblins even more now.

[revenge_inc]

where is everyone getting GPT decklists? I am having difficulty finding anything even remotely discussing them :rolleyes:

The Montreal Top 8

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2587&page=20


Edit: Already posted ealier in the thread-my bad.

[ins0mniaque]

8 Goblins begins to be borderline problematic and 10 tends to already require a real hand to deal with through traditional means.

Against aggro decks, 8 usually won't win you a game, 10 is borderline, and 12 wins you games.


I could see this being an interesting MU with Faerie Stompy. Pre-board Pithing Needle, Chalice and Force of Will (die roll is critical, turn 1 Chalice at 0 is an absolute bomb against you, especially coupled with the possible Force of Will), post-board Engineered Explosives and extra Needles added to the mix.

Faerie Stompy is a hard matchup. But Chalice @ 0 isn't THAT much of a bomb, seriously. We play only 12 spells @ 0, and we often don't even have one in our starting hands or we are using the LED/Chrome Mox only as an additional spell. If you manage a turn 1 CotV @ 1, that's another story. It cuts 15 cards, including 2 of the best acceleration cards: Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame.

[BreathWeapon]

Infernal tutor in the sb makes burning wish = 4x tutor. There's also a duress there, so there is some protection as well.



There's already a Taiga in the MD.

Although it's tempting to run both living and burning wish, it doesn't work out that well. I tested it for a long time, but in the end it doesn't do more for you than Burning wish, and most of the time it does less. Also, with two types of wishes your Infernal Tutors become infinately worse, although this list doesn't run them md. (living wish+city of traitors with a helm in play is like casting a colorless rite though...)

Cutting Dark ritual is also not a good idea. Ever.

Wild Cantor is in the deck as a mana fixer. Since the deck doesn't care that much about turn 2, replacing its mana cost is better than drawing an extra card.

Goblin Welder would be a bad addition as well, for the reason stated above. This build does not want to see turn two.

And what the devil is wrong with his sb?

Cutting Dark Ritual is the best idea, because it's not B for BBB but a two card combo requiring Land Grant for Bayou, Bayou or Lotus Petal. That's 9 outs, 8 of which are counterable and 4 of which show the opponent the Dark Ritual before he has to decide whether or not he wants to counter it. Dark Ritual bottle necks the deck into using black cards for Chrome Mox, filters for mana or Land Grant resolving and the deck has enough acceleration with out it.

4 Tinder Wall are fine, if the deck draws two, it can either Imprint one or pass the turn, gain R, and then cast the other.

2 Taiga are fine, the second is for drawing a second Land Grant and to increase the number of permanent mana sources in the deck.

Burning Wish and Living Wish are fine together, because neither of them serve the same functions in the deck, Burning Wish is either tutoring for Empty the Warrens or Diminishing Returns (LED) and Living Wish is either tutoring for Ancient Tomb or Minions of the Wastes (LED). Sure, both of them can tutor for answers, and Living Wish can tutor for Goblin Welder, but that isn't their primary purpose.

Edit: People who complain about Living Wish don't realize that it's the deck's third win condition, the deck needs to be able to survive against a Duress on the draw, and 15 win conditions allows it to do that. Bad opponent's will discard a Belcher or ETW and leave a Living Wish and LED in hand, letting the deck Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes and kill the opponent in one turn if he cracked a Fetchland or two turns if he didn't.

It also tutors for Wasteland after an ETW, allowing the deck to Time Walk the ETW against control decks who fetch non-basics to support their Pernicious Deed or Pyroclasm.

There's also a Magus of the Future, a creature with Future Sight on it rumored to be in the Future Sight set, I can't even imagine how sick that card would be in the SB if it costs 6 or less.

It is a fact that this deck will see turn 2, if it doesn't draw LED or the opponent draws Force of Will, not using Living Wish means that the deck will not have an Ancient Tomb to activate the Goblin Charbelcher on the following turn or not have the Goblin Welder to recur the Goblin Charblecher after a Force of Will.

Removing Goblin Welder because of Swords to Plowshares is retarded. If the opponent Force of Wills the Goblin Charblecher, then Goblin Welder is still a possible out. If the opponent Force of Wills the Goblin Charbelcher, then Wild Cantor is GG. If the opponent has Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares, then there's nothing that either of them could do, but at least Goblin Welder required the opponent to have a second answer.

There is such a thing as diminishing returns, not the card, the term, that applies to the acceleration in this deck; it will reach a point where that Dark Ritual (and the serious strains that go into casting it) and that Wild Cantor (which has no point in the deck if it were R/g) aren't adding anything relevant to your deck, while Living Wish and Goblin Welder add whole new dimensions to your game plan.

Edit: Bayou also increases the odds of bad Belcher activations.

[CalebD]

The reason why there is only 3 Tinder Walls in the deck is because it's not that hard to get 1 green mana on turn 1, but getting 2 is rare. Because of this, having 2 Tinder Walls in your starting hand mostly said that it was a 6 card hand.

I've placed many a tinder wall on many a chrome mox for that same reason, maybe I'll drop to 3.


Cutting Dark Ritual is the best idea, because it's not B for BBB but a two card combo requiring Land Grant for Bayou, Bayou or Lotus Petal. That's 9 outs, 8 of which are counterable and 4 of which show the opponent the Dark Ritual before he has to decide whether or not he wants to counter it. Dark Ritual bottle necks the deck into using black cards for Chrome Mox, filters for mana or Land Grant resolving and the deck has enough acceleration with out it.

4 Lotus Petal
4 Wild Cantor
1 Bayou
4 Land Grant

Looks like 13, not counting chrome mox.


Burning Wish and Living Wish are fine together, because neither of them serve the same functions in the deck, Burning Wish is either tutoring for Empty the Warrens or Diminishing Returns (LED) and Living Wish is either tutoring for Ancient Tomb or Minions of the Wastes (LED). Sure, both of them can tutor for answers, and Living Wish can tutor for Goblin Welder, but that isn't their primary purpose.

Ok, so Living wish and Burning Wish are both looking for answers, only Burning wish can search up a solid win condition and Living wish can only fetch a 6cc creature that half kills you? Yes, I see how they're both necessary.


Edit: People who complain about Living Wish don't realize that it's the deck's third win condition, the deck needs to be able to survive against a Duress on the draw, and 15 win conditions allows it to do that. Bad opponent's will discard a Belcher or ETW and leave a Living Wish and LED in hand, letting the deck Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes and kill the opponent in one turn if he cracked a Fetchland or two turns if he didn't.

So we should be basing our decks strategys around the hope that our opponents are bad? I'm sorry, but after so many rounds of swiss at a large tournament I'd be dissapointed if I didn't meet a good player eventually.

And the deck already survives against Duress just fine. I can win all day against Pikula if I need to, it's thresh and FS that I'm worried about. I doubt Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes is any good against all three of those decks, actually.



Removing Goblin Welder because of Swords to Plowshares is retarded. If the opponent Force of Wills the Goblin Charblecher, then Goblin Welder is still a possible out. If the opponent Force of Wills the Goblin Charbelcher, then Wild Cantor is GG. If the opponent has Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares, then there's nothing that either of them could do, but at least Goblin Welder required the opponent to have a second answer.

Ok, how about removing Goblin Welder because of:

STP, Mogg Fantastic, gempalm incinerator, Lightning Bolt, Any other Burn Card, Darkblast, Engineered Plague, Pithing Needle, Pyroclasm, any other removal spell in a format made to deal with turn one lackey...

Not to mention the tempo loss you get when they kill welder, or the hands where you really, really wish that welder was an accellerant. Welder also has no interactions in hands winning with EtW, so he basically makes all of those hands 6 card hands.

And comparing a mana fixer to a recursion creature is pretty retarded too.

[ins0mniaque]

CalebD already answered a lot of your post the way I would, but I have some more points...


Cutting Dark Ritual is the best idea... blablabla

You obviously have a different way of playing Belcher. Maybe it's your metagame (every deck plays FoW ?), maybe it's a lack of will to build and playtest versions. We originally built this deck for Vintage (Team CRET mainly plays in Vintage tournaments), and the Vintage version played only 1 Taiga, 4 Welders, and 4 Gambles! And it was RG only. But Welders are excellent in Vintage, as most decks have way less answers to it. And you have a LOT of permanent artifact acceleration (5 Mox, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault didn't make the cut), and Gamble for Black Lotus is nuts. But when converting the deck to Legacy, the lack of good permanent artifacts combined with the amount of creature removal made us drop Welder, which in turn made Gamble much, much worse.


Edit: People who complain about Living Wish don't realize that it's the deck's third win condition, the deck needs to be able to survive against a Duress on the draw, and 15 win conditions allows it to do that. Bad opponent's will discard a Belcher or ETW and leave a Living Wish and LED in hand, letting the deck Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes and kill the opponent in one turn if he cracked a Fetchland or two turns if he didn't.

The deck doesn't NEED a third win condition. And on that "15 win conditions allows it to do that", you obviously didn't do the math behind this. Assuming we really want that first turn kill, and we mulligan every hand that has 0 or 3 and more kill conditions (3 kill/4 acceleration rarely is good), and that we consider mulling to 4 losing the game, 11 win conditions is what you want.

At 10 kill conditions, it does improve your chances of not mulling by 1.4%, but it does increase the amount of mulling into oblivion by 0.7%, and 12 increases the amount of mulligans to 6 and decreases the mulligan into oblivion, but frankly, the only good kill conditions left are Living Wish and Infernal Tutor, and both are not nearly as good as Burning Wish and Burning Wish for Spree of Cave-in can save your ass more than often.

So 10 kill conditions seemed ideal, but because there are no other good acceleration and I hate having 4 Tinder Wall, the 4th Wish was kept maindeck.


It is a fact that this deck will see turn 2, if it doesn't draw LED or the opponent draws Force of Will, not using Living Wish means that the deck will not have an Ancient Tomb to activate the Goblin Charbelcher on the following turn or not have the Goblin Welder to recur the Goblin Charblecher after a Force of Will.

First, CRET Belcher often produces 7 mana without LED on turn 1. And all those arguments are situational arguments. And only very rarely the deck has problems reactivating a Belcher, but that can only be found by playtesting the deck...


There is such a thing as diminishing returns, not the card, the term, that applies to the acceleration in this deck; it will reach a point where that Dark Ritual (and the serious strains that go into casting it) and that Wild Cantor (which has no point in the deck if it were R/g) aren't adding anything relevant to your deck, while Living Wish and Goblin Welder add whole new dimensions to your game plan.

You talk about diminishing returns, but you play 15 kill conditions. But there are diminishing returns @ playing more and more kill conditions too. The more kill conditions you play, the more hands you will have without enough acceleration. And using the same algorithm as before, 15 kills actually make you mulligan into oblivion more often than 14!


Edit: Bayou also increases the odds of bad Belcher activations.

That has to be the only point on which I agree with you. We often tried to play only 1 Taiga main, and it did make Belcher safer, but made us lose that precious 5 sources of black mana.


Here are the numbers I calculated, for 8 to 15 kill conditions. The algorithm only assumes that you mulligan any hand with 0 or 3 kill conditions, and mulliganing to 4 means mulliganing to oblivion. This was done 10000000 (10 million) times for each amount of kill conditions.

[X/60] means X kill conditions in a 60 cards deck.
| M : Y | means Y mulligans
| K : Z | means Z kill conditions in that hand

the rest is the amount of times it happens, and a percentage.

Clearly not the best presentation, but it works.


==================================
[8/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4217001 times, 42.17%
[8/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 1884968 times, 18.85%
[8/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1619158 times, 16.19%
[8/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 589491 times, 5.89%
[8/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 670612 times, 6.71%
[8/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 191297 times, 1.91%
[8/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 827473 times, 8.27%
==================================
[9/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4197259 times, 41.97%
[9/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2189928 times, 21.90%
[9/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1525107 times, 15.25%
[9/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 647910 times, 6.48%
[9/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 593000 times, 5.93%
[9/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 197909 times, 1.98%
[9/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 648887 times, 6.49%
==================================
[10/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4113890 times, 41.14%
[10/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2467891 times, 24.68%
[10/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1447198 times, 14.47%
[10/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 708187 times, 7.08%
[10/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 532725 times, 5.33%
[10/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 203896 times, 2.04%
[10/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 526213 times, 5.26%
==================================
[11/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3982435 times, 39.82%
[11/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2717806 times, 27.18%
[11/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1383007 times, 13.83%
[11/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 767400 times, 7.67%
[11/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 490059 times, 4.90%
[11/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 213052 times, 2.13%
[11/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 446241 times, 4.46%
==================================
[12/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3812324 times, 38.12%
[12/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2924669 times, 29.25%
[12/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1341126 times, 13.41%
[12/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 835892 times, 8.36%
[12/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 463941 times, 4.64%
[12/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 227461 times, 2.27%
[12/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 394587 times, 3.95%
==================================
[13/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3613380 times, 36.13%
[13/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3099175 times, 30.99%
[13/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1308420 times, 13.08%
[13/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 913916 times, 9.14%
[13/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 452414 times, 4.52%
[13/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 246797 times, 2.47%
[13/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 365898 times, 3.66%
==================================
[14/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3394708 times, 33.95%
[14/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3231319 times, 32.31%
[14/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1294139 times, 12.94%
[14/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 1000837 times, 10.01%
[14/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 452087 times, 4.52%
[14/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 272965 times, 2.73%
[14/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 353945 times, 3.54%
==================================
[15/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3161932 times, 31.62%
[15/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3324386 times, 33.24%
[15/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1285902 times, 12.86%
[15/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 1097326 times, 10.97%
[15/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 461535 times, 4.62%
[15/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 308426 times, 3.08%
[15/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 360493 times, 3.60%
==================================


Of course, it doesn't take into account hands where you have no starting acceleration (4x Seething Song anyone), or hands where you would put your 3rd kill condition card under a Chrome Mox, but it does give a good approximation of starting hands. And of course, those numbers could be interpretated in a lot of ways, but I strongly believe that 11 or 12 is the best amount of kill conditions, but because only 11 are really good...

[BreathWeapon]

Minion of the Wastes is awesome, as long as the deck can achieve the 8 mana threshold, 3 of which is produced with LED, it can end the game in a single turn if the opponent cracked a Fetchland and in two turns if he didn't. There is nothing an opponent can do against a 10/10 to 12/12 Trampler that can result in a game loss with 8 to 10 life in two turns unless he is using combo.

The deck has to be able exploit the opponent's SBing; Artifact removal, creature(s) removal, Pithing Needle etc. with a win condition that is immune to all of the opponent's hate. Minion of the Wastes is that win condition, because the opponent will SB out his targeted removal for mass removal as a response to the 7 ETW in the deck and/or Pithing Needle as a response to the 4 Belcher; and none of that matters when the opponent has to face down a 10/10 Trampler. Diversification of threats results in virtual dead cards, that was the entire point of adding ETW instead of tutors for Belcher in the first place.

Test the card, I've won entire matches because of it, and I know for a fact that it is the best win condition against Faerie Stompy if it resolves, and it's the same for any deck with out targeted removal.

Even good opponents discard ETW or Belcher with Living Wish and LED in hand, because the opponent doesn't necessarily know what Living Wish and LED can do and it's reflexive (you wouldn't have, unless I told you, and you know it). If the opponent discards the LED, that's fine, because the Living Wish can get Ancient Tomb and the deck can top deck mana sources faster than it can top deck win conditions.

Edit: Goblin Welder is also a part of the anti-Discard plan.

Wild Cantor doesn't produce Black mana, and counting Chrome Mox in a deck with 4 Black cards isn't sensible.

Gempalm Incinerator and Mogg Fanatic have nothing to do with Goblin Welder, unless you are a complete n00b and you try to cast Goblin Welder on turn one and cheat Goblin Charbelcher into play on turn two against aggro. Against Goblins, Goblin Welder is a 1/1 that adds storm to Empty the Warrens, and it can save your ass if they cast removal on Goblin Charbelcher. I have already covered the, "what if my opponent has an answer to Force of Will and and answer to Goblin Welder" argument, but I'll follow it with that the opponents will SB out their Swords to Plowshares game 2.

Edit: Go argue that Xantid Swarm should be cut from TES because of STP in their thread and see the reaction it gets, and Xantid Swarm has a much bigger role in TES than Goblin Welder has in Belcher.

Comparing Goblin Welder to Wild Cantor is only retarded if you think the deck actually needs mana fixing with two colors.

[ins0mniaque]

Test the card, I've won entire matches because of it, and I know for a fact that it is the best win condition against Faerie Stompy if it resolves, and it's the same for any deck with out targeted removal.

Best win condition, hardly. But I believe that it indeed is a good kill condition against some decks, but I bet that my sideboard already answers those match. Any other example where it is a better win condition ?


Even good opponents discard ETW or Belcher with Living Wish and LED in hand, because the opponent doesn't necessarily know what Living Wish and LED can do and it's reflexive (you wouldn't have, unless I told you, and you know it).

Good opponents will discard Belcher over Living Wish ALL DAY LONG because leaving you with a hand with Belcher, LED, Living Wish and probably 4 other acceleration means you will very probably belch him next turn. So indeed, I wouldn't have discarded the Living Wish because it is a worse play.


Wild Cantor doesn't produce Black mana

What ?


Edit: Go argue that Xantid Swarm should be cut from TES because of STP in their thread and see the reaction it gets, and Xantid Swarm has a much bigger role in TES than Goblin Welder has in Belcher.

Xantid Swarm is a REALLY good disruption, and if Belcher wasn't a deck that tries to go off turn 1, I might consider it. The thing is Xantid Swarm completly "safen" your combo, and in TES this is important as they rarely go off on turn one but you kill you instantly if their combo is backed. Goblin Welder on the other hand only protects 1 of your combo pieces, only if you had it discarded, and only if you have another artifact permanent.


Comparing Goblin Welder to Wild Cantor is only retarded if you think the deck actually needs mana fixing with two colors.

I never compared Welder to Wild Cantor, that would be comparing oranges and apples. But my point is that the deck doesn't need more than 11 kill conditions, and Wild Cantor + Dark Ritual is simply the best acceleration left after all the rest. And Wild Cantor is strangely nice on a Chrome Mox too, but that alone can't justify its presence.

[Moczoc]

Wow, thank you guys .. i just had an old belcher.dec and some burning wishes laying around here. CRET Belcher is a blast to play :) After testing the only thing i have criticize is the choice of lands. I've really lost a bunch of games cause of revealing Bayou with Belcher. I strongly recommend to replace it with Badlands, Taiga or cut it at all.

[BreathWeapon]

CalebD already answered a lot of your post the way I would, but I have some more points...



You obviously have a different way of playing Belcher. Maybe it's your metagame (every deck plays FoW ?), maybe it's a lack of will to build and playtest versions. We originally built this deck for Vintage (Team CRET mainly plays in Vintage tournaments), and the Vintage version played only 1 Taiga, 4 Welders, and 4 Gambles! And it was RG only. But Welders are excellent in Vintage, as most decks have way less answers to it. And you have a LOT of permanent artifact acceleration (5 Mox, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault didn't make the cut), and Gamble for Black Lotus is nuts. But when converting the deck to Legacy, the lack of good permanent artifacts combined with the amount of creature removal made us drop Welder, which in turn made Gamble much, much worse.



The deck doesn't NEED a third win condition. And on that "15 win conditions allows it to do that", you obviously didn't do the math behind this. Assuming we really want that first turn kill, and we mulligan every hand that has 0 or 3 and more kill conditions (3 kill/4 acceleration rarely is good), and that we consider mulling to 4 losing the game, 11 win conditions is what you want.

At 10 kill conditions, it does improve your chances of not mulling by 1.4%, but it does increase the amount of mulling into oblivion by 0.7%, and 12 increases the amount of mulligans to 6 and decreases the mulligan into oblivion, but frankly, the only good kill conditions left are Living Wish and Infernal Tutor, and both are not nearly as good as Burning Wish and Burning Wish for Spree of Cave-in can save your ass more than often.

So 10 kill conditions seemed ideal, but because there are no other good acceleration and I hate having 4 Tinder Wall, the 4th Wish was kept maindeck.



First, CRET Belcher often produces 7 mana without LED on turn 1. And all those arguments are situational arguments. And only very rarely the deck has problems reactivating a Belcher, but that can only be found by playtesting the deck...



You talk about diminishing returns, but you play 15 kill conditions. But there are diminishing returns @ playing more and more kill conditions too. The more kill conditions you play, the more hands you will have without enough acceleration. And using the same algorithm as before, 15 kills actually make you mulligan into oblivion more often than 14!



That has to be the only point on which I agree with you. We often tried to play only 1 Taiga main, and it did make Belcher safer, but made us lose that precious 5 sources of black mana.


Here are the numbers I calculated, for 8 to 15 kill conditions. The algorithm only assumes that you mulligan any hand with 0 or 3 kill conditions, and mulliganing to 4 means mulliganing to oblivion. This was done 10000000 (10 million) times for each amount of kill conditions.

[X/60] means X kill conditions in a 60 cards deck.
| M : Y | means Y mulligans
| K : Z | means Z kill conditions in that hand

the rest is the amount of times it happens, and a percentage.

Clearly not the best presentation, but it works.


==================================
[8/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4217001 times, 42.17%
[8/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 1884968 times, 18.85%
[8/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1619158 times, 16.19%
[8/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 589491 times, 5.89%
[8/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 670612 times, 6.71%
[8/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 191297 times, 1.91%
[8/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 827473 times, 8.27%
==================================
[9/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4197259 times, 41.97%
[9/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2189928 times, 21.90%
[9/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1525107 times, 15.25%
[9/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 647910 times, 6.48%
[9/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 593000 times, 5.93%
[9/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 197909 times, 1.98%
[9/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 648887 times, 6.49%
==================================
[10/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 4113890 times, 41.14%
[10/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2467891 times, 24.68%
[10/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1447198 times, 14.47%
[10/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 708187 times, 7.08%
[10/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 532725 times, 5.33%
[10/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 203896 times, 2.04%
[10/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 526213 times, 5.26%
==================================
[11/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3982435 times, 39.82%
[11/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2717806 times, 27.18%
[11/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1383007 times, 13.83%
[11/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 767400 times, 7.67%
[11/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 490059 times, 4.90%
[11/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 213052 times, 2.13%
[11/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 446241 times, 4.46%
==================================
[12/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3812324 times, 38.12%
[12/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 2924669 times, 29.25%
[12/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1341126 times, 13.41%
[12/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 835892 times, 8.36%
[12/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 463941 times, 4.64%
[12/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 227461 times, 2.27%
[12/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 394587 times, 3.95%
==================================
[13/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3613380 times, 36.13%
[13/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3099175 times, 30.99%
[13/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1308420 times, 13.08%
[13/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 913916 times, 9.14%
[13/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 452414 times, 4.52%
[13/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 246797 times, 2.47%
[13/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 365898 times, 3.66%
==================================
[14/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3394708 times, 33.95%
[14/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3231319 times, 32.31%
[14/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1294139 times, 12.94%
[14/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 1000837 times, 10.01%
[14/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 452087 times, 4.52%
[14/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 272965 times, 2.73%
[14/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 353945 times, 3.54%
==================================
[15/60] | M : 0 | K: 1 -> 3161932 times, 31.62%
[15/60] | M : 0 | K: 2 -> 3324386 times, 33.24%
[15/60] | M : 1 | K: 1 -> 1285902 times, 12.86%
[15/60] | M : 1 | K: 2 -> 1097326 times, 10.97%
[15/60] | M : 2 | K: 1 -> 461535 times, 4.62%
[15/60] | M : 2 | K: 2 -> 308426 times, 3.08%
[15/60] | M : 7 | K: 0 -> 360493 times, 3.60%
==================================


Of course, it doesn't take into account hands where you have no starting acceleration (4x Seething Song anyone), or hands where you would put your 3rd kill condition card under a Chrome Mox, but it does give a good approximation of starting hands. And of course, those numbers could be interpretated in a lot of ways, but I strongly believe that 11 or 12 is the best amount of kill conditions, but because only 11 are really good...

Yes, the metagame I am in consists of Threshold, Goblins, Tendrils and rogue decks, and I build all combo decks to take into consideration control before the rest of the field, it's the smart thing to do.

Go to TMD and SCG and read the T1 and T1.5 Belcher threads, I have more testing with Belcher in T1 and T1.5 with more builds than I can recall, I've been developing the deck since the summer.

There is a big difference between needing a third win condition and using a third win condition, because I can guarantee that the third win condition will prevent the deck from losing to "Pithing Needle GO" and "Engineered Plague GO" as well as the Engineered Explosives, Pernicious Deed and Pyroclasm they have in their hand more than you'd be willing to give it credit for.

Goblin Welder is fine in this format, people just need to understand that he is an answer to Force of Will or a storm for Empty the Warrens and not a cute trick with Gamble or Lion's Eye Diamond.

What's wrong with Diminishing Returns? It produces storm, mana, permanent mana and allows the deck to use Goblin Charblecher instead of Empty the Warrens or turn the storm count on Empty the Warrens into a one turn clock. It's only a single card in your SB, you can easily spare it, and it can Time Walk you. (check your golfdfishes with it, they'll be higher than with out it).

Good math, bad premise; it assumes that Living Wish is a win condition when in fact Living Wish is also an accelerant, Ancient Tomb, mana fixer, Taiga an anti-counter, Goblin Welder and a Time Walk, Wasteland. I would never mulligan a hand just because it had two win conditions and a Living Wish in it, at least not on the draw. 15 win conditions = 25 percent of the deck = 2 out of 8 which is the average I'm most concerned with.

[ins0mniaque]

Wow, thank you guys .. i just had an old belcher.dec and some burning wishes laying around here. CRET Belcher is a blast to play :) After testing the only thing i have criticize is the choice of lands. I've really lost a bunch of games cause of revealing Bayou with Belcher. I strongly recommend to replace it with Badlands, Taiga or cut it at all.

Badland can't be fetched with Land Grant, so that's a big NO. In the goldfish, it's true that we hit Bayou sometimes, however, in testing against other decks, we often find that activating belcher a second time isn't hard at all, and most games where we hit Bayou on turn 1/2, a second activation almost always kills and that second activation isn't hard to do at all. As I already said, cutting Bayou is possible, but it does help to have 2 lands in the deck and, and I believe that cutting 5 black mana sources for that safer belcher isn't necessary.

[ins0mniaque]

Yes, the metagame I am in consists of Threshold, Goblins, Tendrils and rogue decks, and I build all combo decks to take into consideration control before the rest of the field, it's the smart thing to do.

My metagame has those decks too, of course, but I would say that less than 40% plays FoW, and REBs are a really good answer to this. And there are more aggro decks than control decks.


What's wrong with Diminishing Returns? blablabla

We were talking about diminishing returns in general, not the card...


Goblin Welder is fine in this format, people just need to understand that he is an answer to Force of Will or a storm for Empty the Warrens and not a cute trick with Gamble or Lion's Eye Diamond.

I prefer REBs as an answer to FoW, but that might be because I'm a Vintage player.


Living Wish is also an accelerant, Ancient Tomb, mana fixer, Taiga an anti-counter, Goblin Welder and a Time Walk, Wasteland.

I do understand all of your points, and I agree to most of them, but we are not playing the same deck. If I were to compare our decks to Vintage decks, I would say that CRET Belcher is SX, and yours is more like Grim Long. They are both insanely fast decks, SX being faster most of the time, but Grim Long being able to handle more situations that SX (well, SX doesn't handle anything, really).

SX however doesn't work in Vintage (barely works) because decks that have no turn 1 answers lose to the sheer brokenness of the format. In Legacy, this is a lot less true, at least before sideboarding.

So the final decision is do you want to be slightly slower but slightly more resilisant to maindeck hate, or "balls to the wall" and try to put incredible pressure always on turn 1.

I believe my metagame is better answered with the "balls to the wall" plan, at least for now.


15 win conditions = 25 percent of the deck = 2 out of 8 which is the average I'm most concerned with.

If you check the maths, 11 kills give you ~ the same amount of 1/2 kills with 1 mulligan (88.5% for 11, 88.69% for 15), but 11 has 7.2% more 1 kill/6 acceleration than 15. So both amount justify the play style.

[BreathWeapon]

Best win condition, hardly. But I believe that it indeed is a good kill condition against some decks, but I bet that my sideboard already answers those match. Any other example where it is a better win condition ?



Good opponents will discard Belcher over Living Wish ALL DAY LONG because leaving you with a hand with Belcher, LED, Living Wish and probably 4 other acceleration means you will very probably belch him next turn. So indeed, I wouldn't have discarded the Living Wish because it is a worse play.



What ?



Xantid Swarm is a REALLY good disruption, and if Belcher wasn't a deck that tries to go off turn 1, I might consider it. The thing is Xantid Swarm completly "safen" your combo, and in TES this is important as they rarely go off on turn one but you kill you instantly if their combo is backed. Goblin Welder on the other hand only protects 1 of your combo pieces, only if you had it discarded, and only if you have another artifact permanent.



I never compared Welder to Wild Cantor, that would be comparing oranges and apples. But my point is that the deck doesn't need more than 11 kill conditions, and Wild Cantor + Dark Ritual is simply the best acceleration left after all the rest. And Wild Cantor is strangely nice on a Chrome Mox too, but that alone can't justify its presence.

Post board, Minion of the Wastes is the best win condition if it resolves in that match up, because there is nothing the opponent can do to it with the Trinket Mages, Pithing Needles and Engineered Explosives at their disposal. It's the same for all decks with answers to Belcher and ETW in their SB, but no answers to Minion of the Wastes left in their MD.

I don't SB in dedicated answers to Pithing Needle, because it's better to wish for a threat against aggro than it is to wish for an answer, and all of the wish targets that answer Pithing Needle and Chalice of the Void are SBed in for Goblin Welder.

I board out Seething Song for Xantid Swarm against Threshold, because the opponent is boarding out spot removal, and Xantid Swarm is faster than Engineered Explosives. The opponent has more counters than he has hate, and there is no guarantee that the opponent has the correct hate, and there is no guarantee that you don't have the Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes to disregard all of his hate, so it's best to dedicate the SB against their permission.

Living Wish for Minion of the Wastes is what allows me to SB like this, because I don't blink when I see Meddling Mage name the right win condition or the Pithing Needle name Goblin Charbelcher, I have a third out that doesn't require an answer.

Edit: Seething Song is SBed out, because 3 mana is the choke point at which the opponent will Force of Will the Seething Song to prevent you from casting Empty the Warrens or Daze you to keep you off of the mana to Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens.

If Belcher was countered, then the hand has either LED or Chrome Mox as a target for Welder, and it could have kept a Petal in hand if it had 4+ mana. The deck also has a 1/4 chance of top decking an artifact, and believe me, those odds are better than scooping to a Force of Will. It's ok that Goblin Welder doesn't protect ETW, because ETW protects itself via forcing the opponent to counter the Rituals, and Goblin Welder can be used to bait Force of Will if the deck casts a LED, then a Welder and feigns Belcher.

Edit: I wouldn't argue against adding Xantid Swarm main instead of Goblin Welder tho', I just happen to use both, and I prefer Goblin Welder in the MD because it stops the opponent from SBing out his Swords to Plowshares (people don't always see Goblin Welder, but they do always see Xantid Swarm).

The Wild Cantor comment was part of a paragraph I deleted, I meant that Wild Cantor doesn't produce black mana on a Chrome Mox, and that sometimes the deck loses the red source it needed to cast Empty the Warrens in order to resolve the Dark Ritual. Even if Wild Cantor is an out for Dark Ritual, and I'll agree that it is, because I conceded the argument when I deleted the paragraph, it still doesn't stop Dark Ritual from being a two card combo, which I think makes the deck more inconsistent for nothing of serious value.

The CRET build has the same problem as MD Tendrils, even with a ridiculous goldfish rate, it stall falls flat on its face against Force of Will, and it is targeted with even more common SB hate than Tendrils. They got away with their coin flip match ups because they were either really good, really lucky or their opponents were really bad or they weren't prepared for it. I'm sure this deck could raw dog into a T8 with no plan B, protection or regard for turn 2, but you can't rely on that at a GPT and two days of play.

[aTn]

EtW sucks, plain and simple, i think the fatty plan would actually work better even w/ STP since they side it out very often.


Hahaha (sorry but I have to laugh) ! EtW turn 1 does not suck. Even if your opponent has an answer, say Goblin Sharpshooter, they'll need to be able to resolve it before you beat them to death. Also, while they use their resources to get rid of tokens, you can spend time setting up Belcher. As I said earlier, EtW turn 10 is not that hot, but turn 1 its hard to deal with and thats the point of the deck. Test the GPT Montreal list a bit...

[BreathWeapon]

My metagame has those decks too, of course, but I would say that less than 40% plays FoW, and REBs are a really good answer to this. And there are more aggro decks than control decks.



We were talking about diminishing returns in general, not the card...



I prefer REBs as an answer to FoW, but that might be because I'm a Vintage player.



I do understand all of your points, and I agree to most of them, but we are not playing the same deck. If I were to compare our decks to Vintage decks, I would say that CRET Belcher is SX, and yours is more like Grim Long. They are both insanely fast decks, SX being faster most of the time, but Grim Long being able to handle more situations that SX (well, SX doesn't handle anything, really).

SX however doesn't work in Vintage (barely works) because decks that have no turn 1 answers lose to the sheer brokenness of the format. In Legacy, this is a lot less true, at least before sideboarding.

So the final decision is do you want to be slightly slower but slightly more resilisant to maindeck hate, or "balls to the wall" and try to put incredible pressure always on turn 1.

I believe my metagame is better answered with the "balls to the wall" plan, at least for now.



If you check the maths, 11 kills give you ~ the same amount of 1/2 kills with 1 mulligan (88.5% for 11, 88.69% for 15), but 11 has 7.2% more 1 kill/6 acceleration than 15. So both amount justify the play style.

Right, but it's the number of those decks that matter, and there are a large amount of blue decks that are designed to deal with Goblins, and blue decks that are designed to deal with Goblins have the same hate cards it needs against Belcher (Mass removal for Goblins and Pithing Needle for Aether Vial, or god forbid Null Rod)

The Red Blasts are bad, I used 8 of them MD until I realized that the opponent shouldn't allow Belcher to reach 4 mana, let alone 5 mana, if it had a Force of Will or Daze, and Red Blasts have absolutely no synergy with Lion's Eye Diamond.

Lol, I screwed up Diminishing Returns and diminishing returns when I made a point of it to begin with, my bad. Oh well, at least it pre-empts some one from asking what the point of Diminishing Returns is in the board.

Heh, I brought up the CRET and SX comparison before you, I guess that shows we think of the deck in the same way, we just take a different approach based on our metagames.

I'm not concerned with the mulligan, I'm concerned with 7 cards on the draw against Duress, and when I mulligan, I count Living Wish as both a win condition and a mana source. In the hands where it considers the Living Wish as a win condition, the card it would have drawn with out Living With is a Dark Ritual, and that isn't including the 1 of 13 other cards that it has to draw to cast it (and I imagine those odds aren't that good with three of the 6 cards being set)

[Iranon]

What would an optimal 2-colour version (in the main; i'm all for including off-colour bombs in the wishboard) look like?

More consistency and louder belching seem very desirable.

Since the selection of viable cards in just those two colours is a bit smaller, I'm running 3 Welders mostly because I don't know of anything better. Gamble would increase their usefulness a but it's too random for my liking (although it allows some very cute plays).
I wonder if this would become useful if Engineered Explosives entered the picture (versatile answer, free storm, more weld bait) - has anyone given it a go?

[Phantom Ogre]

The CRET build has the same problem as MD Tendrils, even with a ridiculous goldfish rate, it stall falls flat on its face against Force of Will

Justin Walters disagrees with you:


The Riefenstahl Effect
The single most common misunderstanding of the deck that I hear bandied about is this: "Meandeck Tendrils is incredibly fast, but it just loses to Force of Will." The deck does NOT lose to Force of Will. At the latest Waterbury, I punched through each of the following hands: Duress plus Force of Will, playing second; Force of Will plus Mana Drain (playing first); two Force of Will in one turn (playing second); and two Force of Will plus Mana Drain (playing first).

[BreathWeapon]

What would an optimal 2-colour version (in the main; i'm all for including off-colour bombs in the wishboard) look like?

More consistency and louder belching seem very desirable.

Since the selection of viable cards in just those two colours is a bit smaller, I'm running 3 Welders mostly because I don't know of anything better. Gamble would increase their usefulness a but it's too random for my liking (although it allows some very cute plays).
I wonder if this would become useful if Engineered Explosives entered the picture (versatile answer, free storm, more weld bait) - has anyone given it a go?

This is the list I use,

MD

4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish
4 Living Wish
3 Goblin Welder

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall

4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Right of Flame

4 Land Grant
2 Taiga

SB

4 Xantid Swarms
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Deconstruct
1 Cave-In
1 Minion of the Wastes
1 Goblin Welder
1 Elvish Scrapper
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Taiga
1 Wasteland

I'm considering MD -3 Goblin Welder -1 Taiga for +4 Xantid Swarm and SB +4 Shattering Spree.

[Iranon]

Thank you, I will give it a shot. I have been rather dissatisfied with Living Wish in the past, but I'm going to test it again (was running Wild Cantor instead, which is blatant filler... otherwise the maindeck was identical).

[BreathWeapon]

Justin Walters disagrees with you:

If SX could do that, then people would play it in Vintage. It doesn't, and they don't.

[Phantom Ogre]

If SX could do that, then people would play it in Vintage. It doesn't, and they don't.

Steve Menendian has a better reason for the deck's lack of success:


This deck could have 95% turn one goldfish percentage, and I still probably wouldn't take it to a tournament.? For that reason alone, Meandeck Tendrils is fascinating for all sorts of theoretical reasons.? The primary reason it's unviable is because you have to compress all of the numerous decisions of a typical Vintage game into the space of one turn - and do that in a reasonable amount of time.? Unless your name is Deep Blue or Gary Kasparov, I don't think you can play this deck at tournament either, but you're welcome to try.

[BreathWeapon]

Steve Menendian has a better reason for the deck's lack of success:

That's not a reason, that's an excuse.

Regardless, other than their speed, SX and Belcher have nothing to do with each other; SX doesn't care if a single card gets countered (that's the myth any way), but Belcher does care which cards get countered.

Belcher is simple and it's lethal, but it can't top deck out of a Force of Will on Goblin Charbelcher, a Stifle on Empty the Warrens or a Swords to Plowshares on Minion of the Wastes, so you really need some level of protection against Instants.

[CalebD]

Edit: Go argue that Xantid Swarm should be cut from TES because of STP in their thread and see the reaction it gets, and Xantid Swarm has a much bigger role in TES than Goblin Welder has in Belcher.

I don't really have anything of relevance left to add, I just wanted to point out that I was one of those people argueing against Xantid's removal in that thread.

And if Steve Menendian decides a deck is too skill-intensive to play over a long tournament, I'm going to believe him.

[Bane of the Living]

This deck just got more consistancy.

There's a new Zombie in Future Sight who's like a 3/4 for 5 with swampwalk. and.. Cycling:2 Life. OMG hit the free card draw alarm! Start fixing your lists into 56 cards.

Im just waiting for this deck to break into tier one now.

8 new cards for our deck, 4 new free mana cards and 4 new free card draw cards. What else does the deck need now?

[BreathWeapon]

This deck just got more consistancy.

There's a new Zombie in Future Sight who's like a 3/4 for 5 with swampwalk. and.. Cycling:2 Life. OMG hit the free card draw alarm! Start fixing your lists into 56 cards.

Im just waiting for this deck to break into tier one now.

8 new cards for our deck, 4 new free mana cards and 4 new free card draw cards. What else does the deck need now?

It's not as good as it looks, it makes mulliganing an absolute bitch.

[Bane of the Living]

It's not as good as it looks, it makes mulliganing an absolute bitch.

So Im assuming in regards to your post that you've actually been playing with the card? Its been leaked all of one day I sure as hell havent had the chance.

[BreathWeapon]

So Im assuming in regards to your post that you've actually been playing with the card? Its been leaked all of one day I sure as hell havent had the chance.

Yeah, I've had pneumonia for a week, all I've had the time or effort to do is mess around on MWS.

With a deck as tight as Belcher is, I don't think it can risk keeping a hand on Street Wraith hoping to draw a threat, and then it just turns into a 25% additional threat or 75% accelerant, assuming any accelerant is acceptable. You just don't have the tutors or Brainstorms to minimize the amount of damage this card could do if it "gets the wrong card" and stalls the deck.

I just don't know if I would cut Xantid Swarm for this card, because the disruption slot is the one slot that has nothing to do with the combo itself.

You could test the card and come to a different opinion tho'.

[Bane of the Living]

I just don't know if I would cut Xantid Swarm for this card, because the disruption slot is the one slot that has nothing to do with the combo itself.


This seems to be the problem fitting the card into any deck. How do you justify cutting a card that does 'something' for a card that loses you 2 life to thin the lib. I think Belcher is one of the few decks that would want to make that sacrifice. The other verdict being Burn. Ill try a list with the card and see how it goes.

IMO the best card to pull from your deck is probably ESG. SSG is better since its more on color, and your replacing a 'chrome mox' card, which will have the least effect on your decks performance. Would you rather have a free green mana or a free card? Chances are the card you draw will be more free mana.

[BreathWeapon]

This seems to be the problem fitting the card into any deck. How do you justify cutting a card that does 'something' for a card that loses you 2 life to thin the lib. I think Belcher is one of the few decks that would want to make that sacrifice. The other verdict being Burn. Ill try a list with the card and see how it goes.

IMO the best card to pull from your deck is probably ESG. SSG is better since its more on color, and your replacing a 'chrome mox' card, which will have the least effect on your decks performance. Would you rather have a free green mana or a free card? Chances are the card you draw will be more free mana.

The problem with the card is removing a lot of cards on the margins (-1 Brainstorm, -1 Plunge into Darknes, -1 Chrome Mox, - 1 Cabal Ritual in TES for example) and then expecting the cycle to average out your deck. As long as you have a specific card to compare it against, it's a lot easier to judge.

Cutting Elvish Spirit Guide is a bad idea, Elvish Spirit Guide->Tinder Wall is really important, and in Belcher, the card should be either maximizing the deck's mana and threats or be cut altogether.

IMO, the question is disruption or no disruption? If the answer is no disruption, then add Street Wraith. If the answer is disruption, then add Xantid Swarm.

[Bryant Cook]

The problem with the card is removing a lot of cards on the margins (-1 Brainstorm, -1 Plunge into Darknes, -1 Chrome Mox, - 1 Cabal Ritual in TES for example) and then expecting the cycle to average out your deck. As long as you have a specific card to compare it against, it's a lot easier to judge.

Cutting Elvish Spirit Guide is a bad idea, Elvish Spirit Guide->Tinder Wall is really important, and in Belcher, the card should be either maximizing the deck's mana and threats or be cut altogether.

IMO, the question is disruption or no disruption? If the answer is no disruption, then add Street Wraith. If the answer is disruption, then add Xantid Swarm.

I don't see Wraith being good in combo at all, period. I see it making Ichorid become less shitty, but other than that it won't have a huge impact.

[CalebD]

I see wraith as being very difficult to work into belcher. If you have a win condition already, then Wraith would be better off being an accellerant. If you don't have the win condition already, then you should've mulled (outside of hands with 2x wraith-especially on the draw).

Hmmm... it would be pretty broken in Ich, wouldn't it? More dredging power, can be removed to Ich... Looks like it's exactly what the deck needs.

Question for CRET Belcher. Say you're going in blind, Turn one-Game one, and you win the roll. Your hand is:

Lotus Petal
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Simian Spirit Guide
Goblin Charbelcher
Burning Wish

Is it better to Belch with both lands still in the deck, and no permanent mana sources remaining, or is it better to pass the turn w/ 12 tokens in play? I'm leaning towards the Belch, as tokens can be answered via turn 1 BoP/Turn two Deed, Ghostly Prison in Stax, md clasm-etruth-plague, a faster kill or what have you. I'm still very much unsure though, what are everyone's thoughts?

[zetrix]

yah, sure belch the hell out of em, its either you win, or you hit a land and then attempt to draw into 3 mana. (4x led = gg for that =]) Unless they are running needle or something, then you have a few turns before they can answer it (you hope)

[DeathwingZERO]

Personally, I'd mull the hand.

1- Having a hand with just Burning Wish and a table with no permanents against the possibility of a FoW or a "misfire" means you've just let your opponent Time Walk themselves until you reach the ever critical LED (which is now the only thing they have to counter, seeing as you can't cast any future accelerants without a permanent + accelerant..meaning multiple turns down the way).

2- Your worst possible problem is still there: Bayou is in the deck. Land Grant is so crucial to the 1st turn play that I'd rather take 1 less card than rely on a roughly 60/40 chance that my "win" was just robbed from me by not getting 20 cards before it. Taiga will balance this out (and was the main reason I kept it in the build I played a few years back), but even then, still a huge risk.

3- There's a good chance even with one less card you've got a much more solid draw (or even a guaranteed win seeing Land Grant, barring no FoW).

Again though, I'm not accustomed to playing a Belcher deck that isn't primarily black in it's core. The ability to dig and setup along with proactive protection in SB (Duress rather than Swarm) vs the strict "topdeck to win" style of nothing but accelerants, I like knowing my deck has the option MD to try to fix a possible bad situation or recover faster than just topdecking.

And as for ETW, I'm still waiting for the day that people start packing their hate back into sideboards (especially with the rise of TES and fall of Solidarity, due to lack of players). The card is great after a 6-7 card storm count, but your still waiting 2 turns minimum for that resolved spell to officially kill the opponent. It really isn't going to be hard for decks to throw back in Orims Chants, Plagues, Pyroclasm, ETruths, EEs, Stifle, etc to either stall or kill them....and the deck is back to finding a new win condition to backup Belcher, again.

[Eldariel]

I'd go for Warrens first, using Guide>double Rite>Song. If the Wish is countered, I can still play Belcher and try to topdeck the LED/Rite/2 any sources. If it resolves, there're no counterable accelerants left so I get my 12 Goblins, and since I'm on the play, there're only like 2 decks in the entire format with any chance of not just rolling over and dying. The chance of hitting an MD FoW is much higher than the chance of hitting MD Pyroclasm (found and cast turn 2) or turn 1 MD Engineered Plague, turn 2 Deed (the most prominent Deed-deck, 4c Landstill, can't do that) or turn 2 exploded Explosives. I think the largest issue with going for the Belcher-kill is that it leaves you dead in water against FoW (you'd either have to burn all your non-Song accelerants, or Song and all but one of the others, so the chances of being able to go for EtW-kill at any point are slim). The hand is a definite keeper and unless you know opponent's deck, you should go for EtW-kill.

[BreathWeapon]

I see wraith as being very difficult to work into belcher. If you have a win condition already, then Wraith would be better off being an accellerant. If you don't have the win condition already, then you should've mulled (outside of hands with 2x wraith-especially on the draw).

Hmmm... it would be pretty broken in Ich, wouldn't it? More dredging power, can be removed to Ich... Looks like it's exactly what the deck needs.

Question for CRET Belcher. Say you're going in blind, Turn one-Game one, and you win the roll. Your hand is:

Lotus Petal
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Simian Spirit Guide
Goblin Charbelcher
Burning Wish

Is it better to Belch with both lands still in the deck, and no permanent mana sources remaining, or is it better to pass the turn w/ 12 tokens in play? I'm leaning towards the Belch, as tokens can be answered via turn 1 BoP/Turn two Deed, Ghostly Prison in Stax, md clasm-etruth-plague, a faster kill or what have you. I'm still very much unsure though, what are everyone's thoughts?

Eldariel had it right, I'm just going to go thru' the steps to understand the thought process behind his choices.

Assuming the opponent is on the draw and unknown, this is the correct course of action considering Force of Will.

Simian Spirit Guide -> Right of Flame -> Right of Flame with 4 mana floating, at this point, the opponent has to consider whether or not he should Force of Will the second Right of Flame to prevent an ETW ,and if he does, it is the least amount of damage done to the hand.

(Lotus Petal can produce G mana and add storm, so cast Right of Flame off of Simian Spirit Guide).

If the opponent doesn't cast Force of Will on the second Right of Flame, then cast Burning Wish, if the opponent sand bagged the Force of Will for the win conditon, he'll Force of Will the Burning Wish, and the deck can cast Lotus Petal, Seething Song, Goblin Charbelcher and attempt to top deck into the win.

That is the appropriate course of action when considering Force of Will, which leads the deck into an ETW kill, regardless, I would go for an ETW kill, because the Belcher has a huge chance of failing and allowing the opponent to either counter top decked acceleration or just beat down before the deck draws enough acceleration, and the right combination of acceleration.

@ Deathwingzero,

The hate hasn't gone any where, it's always been here, and we're playing thru' it.

[Bane of the Living]

Since this deck runs many more red ritual cards than TES is it safe for it to place a copy of Rite of Flame in the sb as a wish target? This sample hand reminded me of the situation.

[BreathWeapon]

Since this deck runs many more red ritual cards than TES is it safe for it to place a copy of Rite of Flame in the sb as a wish target? This sample hand reminded me of the situation.

No, it reduces the number of 2 Right of Flame hands, the number of 1cc Ritual and Burning Wish for Right of Flame isn't mana efficient with out permanent mana and passing the turn.

[Eldariel]

You should note about the hand above that a smart opponent will FoW your Seething Song, still leaving you dead in water which is why I absolutely hate Seething Song and refuse to play any combo-deck until I can play all Rituals and 0 Songs. That would definitely make combo more T1-like and much more resilient to Forces. Also, this showcases why you should absolutely FoW Seething Song as a control-player. Denying a combo-deck 5 mana tends to be good for 3-4 cards and absolutely slows them down to crawl, not letting them get their Storm-cards off.

[BreathWeapon]

You should note about the hand above that a smart opponent will FoW your Seething Song, still leaving you dead in water which is why I absolutely hate Seething Song and refuse to play any combo-deck until I can play all Rituals and 0 Songs. That would definitely make combo more T1-like and much more resilient to Forces. Also, this showcases why you should absolutely FoW Seething Song as a control-player. Denying a combo-deck 5 mana tends to be good for 3-4 cards and absolutely slows them down to crawl, not letting them get their Storm-cards off.

I disagree, after the Burning Wish the opponent sees that there are 3 cards left in Belcher's hand: he has no guarantee that he can counter a single mana source and win the game if those mana sources are all 0cc or Spirit Guides.

What if those last three cards were Land Grant, Chrome Mox and Elvish Spirit Guide? Force of Will on Chrome Mox means the deck can Land Grant for Taiga and discard Elvish Spirit Guide, so all the Force of Will did was increase the storm of ETW.

I don't think letting the Burning Wish resolve is a good idea.

[Eldariel]

I disagree, after the Burning Wish the opponent sees that there are 3 cards left in Belcher's hand: he has no guarantee that he can counter a single mana source and win the game if those mana sources are all 0cc or Spirit Guides.

What if those last three cards were Land Grant, Chrome Mox and Elvish Spirit Guide? Force of Will on Chrome Mox means the deck can Land Grant for Taiga and discard Elvish Spirit Guide, so all the Force of Will did was increase the storm of ETW.

I don't think letting the Burning Wish resolve is a good idea.

No, of course you don't let Burning Wish resolve. However, the sequence of plays Belcher-player should do is:

SSG-Rite-Rite-SONG-Wish. Now, if Song gets countered, you're back to square one, just without much mana. If your sequence is:
SSG-Rite-Rite-Wish and you get the Wish countered, you have to play Petal and pop it before you can play Song>Belcher meaning that you'll be left with a Belcher, no mana sources and 1 point of manaburn to boot should the Wish get FoWed. SSG-Rite-Rite-Song means they need to counter Song and they don't know it (you might be holding Rite-Empty FTW), although any decent player will still counter it. Your Song will essentially be a dead card if you DO get countered, so having cast it is just good. Long story short, you want to save your Petal so you gotta cast Song first.

If the Belcher-player goes SSG-Rite-Rite-Wish, I'd bite it and FoW the Wish since else I'd probably lose anyways. You need to realize that if you make this series of plays, you're bluffing opponent to make the correct play.

[BreathWeapon]

I don't get it,

SSG->Flame->Flame->Song is a definite Force of Will on Song, leaving R in the mana pool and Burning Wish, Goblin Charblecher and Lotus Petal in hand. How is that better than SSG->Flame->Flame->Wish where the deck can cast Goblin Charblecher after the Force of Will and have some degree of being inevitable via top decking for mana. In the first hand, the deck has one mana and two win conditions, the second of which is going to be terrible with out a significant storm count and with creatures on the board, and both of which still have to be cast for more mana than it costs to activate the Goblin Charbelcher and win.

SSG->Flame->Flame->Song is the wrong line, IMO, drawing LED is almost worthless with that hand, while top decking LED is GG with Belcher on the board.

[Eldariel]

I don't get it,

SSG->Flame->Flame->Song is a definite Force of Will on Song, leaving R in the mana pool and Burning Wish, Goblin Charblecher and Lotus Petal in hand. How is that better than SSG->Flame->Flame->Wish where the deck can cast Goblin Charblecher after the Force of Will and have some degree of being inevitable via top decking for mana. In the first hand, the deck has one mana and two win conditions, the second of which is going to be terrible with out a significant storm count and with creatures on the board, and both of which still have to be cast for more mana than it costs to activate the Goblin Charbelcher and win.

SSG->Flame->Flame->Song is the wrong line, IMO, drawing LED is almost worthless with that hand, while top decking LED is GG with Belcher on the board.

SSG-Rite-Rite-Song leaves you with a mana source left. If you just get a Charbelcher out there, you're left with lands+grants+guides+petals for mana sources, while with a Petal left, you're left with ~40 cards in your deck capable of producing more mana. I think it's likelier to find the mana to cast+activate Belcher with Petal left than find the 3 mana sources/LED for Belcher-activation.

[TheDarkshineKnight]

This is actually the one combo deck that doesn't want to run Wraith, as it could potentially force you to draw one of your lands.

[BreathWeapon]

Presenting win condition number four,

Storm Entity, 1R

Creature - Elemental (TS) U

Haste
Storm Entity comes into play with a +1/+1 counter for each other spell played this turn.
1/1

So, Belcher averages about 3.5 storm a turn just in acceleration, and this card is base 1/1, that's a 4/4 to 5/5 Haste for 1R that can either be MDed or SBed and a 5/5 to 6/6 Haste with Living Wish for 2RG. If people start to counter the fourth mana source in order to prevent ETW, or if people counter the Goblin Charbelcher, Burning Wish or Living Wish, then this card can still be cast on the same turn as a two turn clock. I imagine this thing is the best "Man Plan" Storm combo could have besides Tomb of Urami.

I'm SBing one and considering MDing the other three over Xantid Swarm, both of them are good against Force of Will, Stifle and die to Swords to Plowshares, but Storm Entity doesn't die to direct damage and doesn't require the deck to pass the turn, while Xantid Swarm protects Burning Wish, Living Wish and LED hands.

[DeathwingZERO]

Problem is, that's a pretty useless card for this deck. Belcher has no board sweepers or even spot removal, so after the turn 1 godhand of putting it into play large enough to be threatening (meaning something like 4-5 cards -> LW -> StormE), they can just block it continuously for a number of turns with chumps until they find spot removal, and you still need to recover for a main kill condition. Unlike Tomb, this has no evasion abilities. Flying > nothing.

Any number of decks in the top tiers at this point I'd say have a buffer of probably 10 life, meaning that's the point that the deck would actually have to care about combat based damage. Goblins and Thresh are the only decks capable of bypassing that rule (off the top of my head), due to "on-spot enlargement", via Threshhold and things such as SGC/Piledriver. FS with equip can also be able to overcome 10 dmg in a single step, and a "maxed" ETW can also do that, due to the fact that it's multiple little creatures, but this guy doesn't get that benefit. No equip, no evasion, no protection = no need.

[BreathWeapon]

One of the important things to take into consideration is that this card can be cast along side another win condition, presenting the opponent with two threats, and aggro-control should be SBing out its Swords to Plowshares against Belcher.

Also, after Burning Wish->Diminishing Returns it's the equivalent of putting a 10/10+ Haste onto the board on turn one.

[Iranon]

I think it has some merit.

4 mana for a Living Wish to be a credible threat would really lower the threshold to do something relevant... and in the main it can be quite nice alongside a few goblins.

Since it's not that threatening compared to the other win conditions, I would only run it in a r/g list though. If you are willing to spread over three colours, you can do better.

[Finn]

I am entering this conversation on the grounds that I think adding ETW and Burning Wish can make this deck better specifically with regards to counterspells.

I hang my head in the lameness of quoting myself. I need a segue and I don't feel creative enough to come up with something new.

I did some testing. This is what I used.

Lands
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

Green
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant

Red
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Seething Song
2 Empty the Warrens

Black
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Dark Ritual

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

Side Board//
2 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
...other stuff I didn't use

Goldfishing went as follows in 42 games, drop the highest and lowest (so out of 40).

avg: 2.975
%1: 10.0
%2: 22.5
%3: 42.5
%4: 12.5
%5: 10.0
%6: 02.5

These numbers are not the turn you go off, they are kill turns assuming attacking with little 1/1's off of Warrens where applicable and includes opponent blocks and spot removal estimations.

Whatever. The real testing came against Gobs and Thresh.

Gobs - 5-0 matches including sbing. I won all 10 games. He had Needles, but he did not have Chalice.

UGR Thresh - 2-8 - matches including sb. He had Stifle which hurt a lot.

My initial estimates were not really accurate. FoW is still very hard to overcome at times. BUT, the Pithing Needle brought in by Gobs was no big deal and this deck does not kill itself.
Xantids should have been main. The deck can USUALLY go off on turn 1. That's way more than 50%. FoW makes that kinda moot, though.

Questions:

1. Beyond Xantids and Duress what else can we include to improve this?
2. This appears to be flat-out better than the old Belcher builds. Is there anything I am forgetting?
In the 10 matches against Theshold my opponent made a poor decision on whether to counter acceleration only 3 times. Part of the problem was that I am using Land Grant. Yeah, he gets to see my hand <--dumbass. So FoW is still very hard to overcome at times.


@TheRack, I actually had Cabal Ritual early on, but discovered that I was "going off" so early that I never ever had Threshold. That is still true after more than 60 goldfish and another 30 or so real life games. So I am quite sure Cabal Ritual is stinky. Desperate Ritual has actually been able to splice into a copy of itself from time to time.

[xsockmonkeyx]

If you have Dark Ritual and Infernal Tutor in the deck then why no IGG in the deck, sideboard? That card is just not fair with and LED, a ritual and a Tutor. Makes lethal storm easier to grab with the right combinations of cards you are already running. And while youre at it how about a Tendrils just for fun? :)

[BreathWeapon]

So, the list of Living Wish targets is becoming even more insane;

Magus of the Future, 2UUU

Creature-Human Wizard

Play with the top card of your library revealed.

You may play that card.

2/3

The deck has 8 cards that slow it down, Spirit Guides, but other than that there are 16 cards that are free, 16 cards that produce mana and the rest of the cards are win conditions.

Goblins can't even hope to Mogg Fanatic or Gempalm Incinerator it in time unless the top decks are complete ass.

Besides Goblin Charbelcher, I think this is the closest thing to a turn one win as this deck can get.

[DeathwingZERO]

Are you honestly advocating trying to add a card to the sideboard that's:

1- 5 mana, 3 of which off color
2- A creature with only 3 toughness
3- Not a win condition
4- Not a viable ability; ie removal, etc

The deck could really not abuse this card in the slightest. Ok, it allows you to play the top card of your deck. Problem is, the cards not free. Nor is it going to guarantee that your really going anywhere with it.

Ok, so lets take up this scenario:
You've just spent 7 mana to cast this creature (3UUUG) and it's in play. You flip the topdeck, and it's a ritual (red). You dig a little further, and now you see an Elvish Spirit Guide. So you've got a bunch of red in your pool, and no way to cast it, effectively stopping you from going further, and hurting you even more, both in losing out on ritual effects, AND taking damage. If people are already ditching black to stick with just R/G and losing out on Tutors to search for specific cards, why would the deck want a 3rd color that effectively is a slow and inconsistent draw engine?

Point being, it's not good enough. Sure you can keep rolling if the topdeck luck is right, but a deck relying on it's topdeck in the first place is not going to magically win more than lose when that's all it has to work with.

And WHERE is the turn 1 play coming from with this guy? I've seen people bitch and moan for games on end about how 7 mana just to get Belcher on the table and activated was a pain, here you have 7 mana JUST to get your topdeck rolling. I love the card, but it's not good here, at all.

[BreathWeapon]

Are you honestly advocating trying to add a card to the sideboard that's:

1- 5 mana, 3 of which off color
2- A creature with only 3 toughness
3- Not a win condition
4- Not a viable ability; ie removal, etc

The deck could really not abuse this card in the slightest. Ok, it allows you to play the top card of your deck. Problem is, the cards not free. Nor is it going to guarantee that your really going anywhere with it.

Ok, so lets take up this scenario:
You've just spent 7 mana to cast this creature (3UUUG) and it's in play. You flip the topdeck, and it's a ritual (red). You dig a little further, and now you see an Elvish Spirit Guide. So you've got a bunch of red in your pool, and no way to cast it, effectively stopping you from going further, and hurting you even more, both in losing out on ritual effects, AND taking damage. If people are already ditching black to stick with just R/G and losing out on Tutors to search for specific cards, why would the deck want a 3rd color that effectively is a slow and inconsistent draw engine?

Point being, it's not good enough. Sure you can keep rolling if the topdeck luck is right, but a deck relying on it's topdeck in the first place is not going to magically win more than lose when that's all it has to work with.

And WHERE is the turn 1 play coming from with this guy? I've seen people bitch and moan for games on end about how 7 mana just to get Belcher on the table and activated was a pain, here you have 7 mana JUST to get your topdeck rolling. I love the card, but it's not good here, at all.

Yup, I've been testing the card since before it was spoiled, and it's either been a turn one win, turn two untap and win or if it sticks on the board longer a tun x win as long as it isn't removed in the mean time.

It's a 5cc out for Living Wish to consider, just like Magus of the Jar, and the 3 toughness puts it out of the range of Mogg Fanatic and Gempalm Incinerator.

No reason not to SB it when it's just another possible out, the source of mana is kind of obvious.

[Moczoc]

I've lost too much games to that fucking Bayou so i finally decided to cut it. Then black mana got rare and Dark Ritual had to go too. There are no more good ritual spells out there so i had so smaller the whole deck (with the inclusion of Street Wraith).
I'm quiet statisfied with this list now:

Creatures
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
3 Wild Cantor <- could be Ornithopter too in most cases, but sometimes she ''combos'' with a land to get a turn 2 Belcher.

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
1 Cave-In
4 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Deconstruct
1 Diminishing Returns <- I'm not sure if it's worth playing, sometings the 7 cards were just crap.
1 Infernal Tutor

After goldfishing it seemed that this list has less turn 1 and 2 kills than classic-CRETbelcher but less turn 4,5,6 (and beyond) too. It strongly concentrates on a turn 3 win :wink:

[laststepdown]

I've lost too much games to that fucking Bayou so i finally decided to cut it. Then black mana got rare and Dark Ritual had to go too. There are no more good ritual spells out there so i had so smaller the whole deck (with the inclusion of Street Wraith).
I'm quiet statisfied with this list now:

Creatures
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
3 Wild Cantor <- could be Ornithopter too in most cases, but sometimes she ''combos'' with a land to get a turn 2 Belcher.

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
1 Cave-In
4 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Deconstruct
1 Diminishing Returns <- I'm not sure if it's worth playing, sometings the 7 cards were just crap.
1 Infernal Tutor

After goldfishing it seemed that this list has less turn 1 and 2 kills than classic-CRETbelcher but less turn 4,5,6 (and beyond) too. It strongly concentrates on a turn 3 win :wink:


I'm sorry, what is a Street Wraith?

[Kazadoom]

Street Wraith is a costly black creature with cycling for 2 live
(future sight)

[Khepri]

I played this deck for a while and this was my decklist:

// Lands
1 [B] Bayou

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

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

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [B] Taiga
SB: 4 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 4 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 4 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 2 [NE] Reverent Silence

The sideboard was created for my meta so it should need some changes (for example Reverence Silence...). Originally i played Goblin Welder in the side but Legacy has too much 1/1 hate... Taiga in side is used when you side-in REB, Shattering or Empty.

Sorry for my bad english. Bye!

[Moczoc]

Look's like my oldest list :wink: I strongly recommend to play 4 Burning Wish and 3 Empty the Warrens in the Mainboard (and 1 SB). This is the only way the deck becomes competitive.

[Happy Gilmore]

Look's like my oldest list :wink: I strongly recommend to play 4 Burning Wish and 3 Empty the Warrens in the Mainboard (and 1 SB). This is the only way the deck becomes competitive.

We did a quick test over the weekend with the version that made top 2 at the GPT and it had a 50-60% first turn "going off" each time. This includes Playing a Belcher and activating it the next turn, and making 12 plus goblins. The speed of this deck is sick, but it loses straight up to FoW, ETW or not.

[BreathWeapon]

We did a quick test over the weekend with the version that made top 2 at the GPT and it had a 50-60% first turn "going off" each time. This includes Playing a Belcher and activating it the next turn, and making 12 plus goblins. The speed of this deck is sick, but it loses straight up to FoW, ETW or not.

Cut Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor and go with Xantid Swarm? It seems like most combo decks are 100% better with bees in it.

[Moczoc]

I'd rather play them SB to make my opponents board out their creature-removal after game 1.

[Khepri]

Look's like my oldest list :wink: I strongly recommend to play 4 Burning Wish and 3 Empty the Warrens in the Mainboard (and 1 SB). This is the only way the deck becomes competitive.

Yes, I imagine that my old list needs an "upgrade".

I see the built at page 15 but i have to test it to understand why Burning Wish is so important. Instead i agree with Empty maindeck.

[magicxsoldier]

IM looking at gatherer seeing if there is anything good from future sight for belcher..i'll edit this post when I finish looking..

[Nihil Credo]

At a quick glance:

Street Wraith - Every combo player seems to have a boner about this guy. I'm skeptical, because it makes mulligan decisions that much harder (as if they weren't already), but if there's a deck worth trying it out in, it's Belcher.

Summoner's Pact - ESG #8-12. Very real chances of replacing Wild Cantor.

Other Pacts - None interesting.

Magus of the Vineyard - Usually worse than Eladamri's Vineyard, and nobody plays that.

Edge of Autumn - Uncounterable Crop Rotation for zero mana, but fetches only basics and they CIP tapped. Unplayable.

Storm Entity - If there are more Pyroclasms than Swords to Plowshares in your meta, this is better than Empty the Warrens.

Glittering Wish - Good, but not for this deck.

Grinning Ignus - Almost strictly worse than Pentad Prism.

Cloud Key - In fast combo, just worse than Helm of Awakening.

Nihilith - If I wanted an alternate win condition like TES has, I'd do like TES and play Tomb of Urami.

[freakish777]

Here's the list I've been playing

4 Belcher
4 ETW
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Spoils

4 Rit
4 Rite of Flame
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
2 Cabal Rit
6ish Spirit Guides
4 Walls
4 LED
4 CMox
4 Lotus Petal

3 Bees
3 Welders (counts as both protection and mana, seeing as how he says R, wait a turn, add 4 to your mana pool)


Seething Song is terrible in this deck. You don't want to pay 3 mana for +2 mana. You want to pay 1 for +1/+2, or 0 for +1/+3. Cabal Rit is the weakest card in the deck (you never hit Thresh), but it's good with the other Rits (Rit + Cabal Rit = Belcher, Rite of Flame + Cabal Rit + a black and red = Belcher, etc). Tendrils should never be played in Legacy Belcher. You never hit 10 storm. Burning/Living Wish can't grab Belcher, ditch them.

Your primary plan should always be to kill with Belcher when you have the correct amount of mana (what you grab with IT/Spoils) unless you had double Belcher in your hand or something and have to Spoils and respond with LED for some reason. Killing your opponent outright is plan A always. EtW is plan B, for Needle, when it's in your opening hand, and when your hand doesn't produce enough mana to activate Belcher (ie, you have to topdeck Ritual or LED or something like that to activate it the following turn). Welder + Xantid is the package to beat control with, 1cc "threats" are great even if they're creatures (Xantid being good for slow rolling it, Welder for working around countermagic and making 4 mana when you've got a Chrome Mox/Petal down in conjunction with LED). Spoils is entirely underrated. Oh no I can kill myself! Not a big deal, not a big risk, big reward. 16 kills + Tutors in the main is ridiculous.


SB can have Sprees in it, the missing Spirit guides (Simian + Spree sounds pretty good), REBs if you like them, the missing Welder and Swarm, Duress, etc.

You crush aggro. Goblins/Affinity scoops to you pre-board assuming you don't Spoils yourself out, post board they have Needle/Chalice (Affinity may have Chalice main, if it's something you expect to show up, you can have some Sprees main over the anti-control stuff, those slots are mallable).

You have outs against control/FoW including going for it on turn 1 under the assumption that you win 55% of those game (chance of a hand containing atleast 1 FoW is 39.96% or so, take off another 5% or something like that based on Spoiling yourself out, or making 12 EtW tokens and them having Pyroclasm).



This is about the most unfair deck I think I've played, and it requires little to no thinking (as far as planning and crunching probabilities, reading opponents is another story) whatsover.

[Khepri]

I tryed the deck that made top 2 at the GPT and i have to say that it really works fine (even burning wish... i can't belive it!). It's really fast and it has the advantage that you never kill yourself (with spoils in example).

Great work!

[BreathWeapon]

Infernal Tutor is just a bad Burning Wish, 9 mana to find and activate Belcher is unreasonable in this deck, so it becomes an off color tutor for Empty the Warrens, and Spoils of the Vault is just giving the opponent free wins.

Black just isn't worth it.

Seething Song, however, is a great card, albeit difficult to cast, it almost gets to the 6 mana breaking point for Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens by itself.

Altho' this deck is very easy to play and very resilient, you still have to be certain your MD just doesn't unnecessarily suck, that's the hardest thing to get down with the deck.

Also, the other problem with the deck is that it doesn't allow the player to capitalize on his skill against an unskilled opponent, but on the flip side, it doesn't really allow the reverse either.

[Pyrokinesis]

Pact of Negation may be a decent sideboard option for this deck to bring in as protection. It probably isn't as good as bees are, though.

0

Instant

Pact of Negation is blue.
Counter target spell.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 3UU. If you don't, you lose the game.

Remember that you can activate Belcher in response to the game loss trigger.

[Moczoc]

The green and the blue pact are great when you go off for a belcher-kill, but just suck in a combo-turn in that you create a pack of Goblin (because you do need the following 2 turns to kill)


@BreathWeapon: when do you use Diminishing Returns? I looks to me like a rather risky win-more card!?

[BreathWeapon]

The green and the blue pact are great when you go off for a belcher-kill, but just suck in a combo-turn in that you create a pack of Goblin (because you do need the following 2 turns to kill)


@BreathWeapon: when do you use Diminishing Returns? I looks to me like a rather risky win-more card!?

There's no risk against aggro, if the hand has Burning Wish and LED, it can tutor for Diminishing Returns with LED on the stack and then draw a second hand in order to create an advantage in permanent mana, Chrome Mox and Land Grant, acceleration and storm, Empty the Warrens, or find Goblin Charbelcher and win.

You can also use it after a Xantid Swarm resolves and attacks against most aggro-control decks; sometimes the opponent wont have the Force of Will, but he will have the Pithing Needle. Xantid Swarm Time Walked them into their turn to cast the Pithing Needle, and instead of removing the Pithing Needle with Burning Wish, the deck can take them off the rest of their hand with Diminishing Returns and cast Empty the Warrens for 10+ with a Diminishing Returns.

[Thornicator]

Please don't get me wrong, I love making 12-14 Goblins on Turn 1 or winning with Belcher turn 1 or 2, but I have been having nothing but headaches with decks that run Force and/or Chalice. I originally wanted to play this at the GP but with Chalice picking up more speed lately and people running Force in good decks forever, I just can't see doing it. The aggro matchups being absurdly in your favor and the fact that you are faster than the other combo decks to me just don't outweigh FoW and Chalice being played in large #s. Maybe I'm wrong. Thoughts?

Thornicator

[DeathwingZERO]

Every combo deck in the format has a problem with FoW and Chalice, especially decks like TES and Belcher, which require a ton of 0-2cc accelerants and search. I'll tell you hands down right now that Faerie Stompy is the toughest matchup your going to face with this deck. Even testing TES against it, I had very subpar results.

The best play against FoW is to be smarter than your opponent. Know when to bait, and with what. Other than that, you can play black and be proactive (Duress), or go with green and wait a turn (Xantid Swarm) barring that your opponent isn't also playing with StP (Thresh and Meat Hooks are especially cruel to this deterrent).

As for Chalice, TES had the most effective way around it in my opinion, with Shattering Spree. Typically needing to replicate it once or twice, but it's effective and cheap.

In my old build w/Living Wish, I usually kept in both a Viridian Shaman and a Zealot, just to have 2 slots dedicated to taking out abusive artifacts I could get mid-game. I also at times ran 4 Oxidize/Naturalize, but that was something of a Meta call.