[KDLD III] A Turn of Magic is Better Than Nothing, Right? Top 2

The day of the Tournament I decide to roll with Belcher.

CRET Belcher
4 Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

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

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

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

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


Round 1 Jeff Folinus (Gekoratel) Goblins
Game 1
I win the Die Roll.
I keep my hand, Drop Belcher burn for one and say go.
Turn 2 he gets Belched out.
Board
-2 Wild Cantor
-1 Dark Ritual
+3 Shattering Spree
Game 2
He opens with land -> Lackey.
I drop belcher and activate for the win
After the game he informs me that he was going to drop Seige Gang off of Lackey and play Chalice for 1 if he had gotten a turn 2. Luckily he didn't as I had a fist full of one mana accelerants and zero zero mana accelerants
Record
1-0

Round 2 Trevor (Getsickanddie) Affinity
Game 1
Trevor wins the die roll and goes Darksteel Citadel - > Arcbound Worker
I debate with myself for awhile trying to decide if I should go for the Belcher or Warrens kill and if he might be playing Force of Will. In the end I just drop belcher and activate and deal zero damage as the taiga is the top card. Trevor scoops anyway as the next activation will deal 102 damage.
Board
-2 Wild Cantor
-1 Dark Ritual
+3 Shattering Spree
Game 2.
Trevor mulligans to 5 while I keep a slow hand with no win conditions but with a shattering spree.
He drops a Citadel and a Chromatic Star.
I draw a mox and drop it imprinting Dark Ritual
Turn Two Trevor drops Tree of Tales, Disciplie of the Vault and Arcbound Worker.
I draw Belcher and activate it with the ability to activate again next turn off LED. It doesn't matter as it is for plenty
Record 2-0

Round 3 Matt Abold (bigbear) Survival
Matt wins the die roll and I have to mulligan. Before I can see my new 6 we get deck checked so both of us get new hands, his 7 mine 6.
He plays a bird.
I drop Belcher and screw up by using a lotus petal to cast it instead of a Simian Spirit Guide.
He drops Surival and passes the turn. I draw Tinder Wall which I can't cast off of Guide so the Desperate Ritual in my hand is stranded. He surivals for Vandal and destroys my Belcher.
That sucked.
Game 2 we both Mulligan and I put 10 Pro Player Cards into play turn 1
Matt has to both the next turn to stay alive, killing Carlos Ramano. :frown:
He doesn't draw E-Plague for his turn and loses.
Game 3 I don't have notes on mulligans but he goes first turn duress for the win condition in my hand (ETW or Wish). I draw a card play a land and pass.
He drops Roffelos. I draw belcher, play it and activate killing him. After the game he shows me the Zealot and E-plague that he had in hand.

Record
3-0

Round 4 Jim (jim) - Train Wreck
I get paired down against Train Wreck. From previous matchs against Train Wreck with TES I know how easy that deck can kill tokens so I figure this might be a very annoying match.
Game 1 -
Jim goes first and goes Land Top.
I drop and activate belcher for lethal.
Board
-2 Wild Cantor
-1 Dark Ritual
+3 Shattering Spree
Game 2 I have to mulligan.
I am able to drop belcher turn 1 but it uses up most of my hand and leaves me with no permanent sources of mana.
I draw more belchers, wishes, and warrens while he drops sphere of resistance and kills any creatures I play to store mana before eventually deeding away the belcher. He kills me at some point. For the longest time even with sphere out I was one Guide away from being able to activate the stupid thing.
Before Game 3 I desideboard as shattering spree on Sphere is not easy to cast and I would rather try to win quick and not have dead cards.
Game 3 he mulligans after I keep a hand with wish and what I thought was 5 mana. After I say I am keeping I realize that it is only 5 since chrome mox doesn't produce mana without another card.
I should have just past the turn and gone for the tokens turn 2 but I was worried about crime/punishment or deed. Instead turn two I wish for Duress and remove sphere from his hand. He doesn't have another relevant land in his hand so I hope, but he rips lands and proceeds to hymn me, extripate me, and so one. However, he can't kill me before time is called.
Record
3-0-1

Round 5 Colin (Diablos) - Survival
Game 1
I win the Die Roll and mulligan.
I still make 14 Pro Players Turn 1

Game 2
Diablos mulligans to 4 trying to find both land and disruption.
He opens with a therapy on belcher but my hand is double warrens, wish.
My turn 1 I imprint the warrens on moxes and burning wish for warrens making a butt ton of Pro Players. He draws a card and scoops.

Round 6 Geoff -Landstill
ID

Top 8 Cody (Ta Juggs) -43lands
I am worried about Tabernacle so my plan is try for belcher if I can.
Game 1
I win the die roll and Cody mulligans.
I make 10 Pro Players Turn 1.
He can't find Tabernacle before they beat his face.
Board
-2 Wild Cantor
-1 Dark Ritual
+3 Shattering Spree
Game 2
I Burning wish for Infernal and drop belcher.
Next Turn I activate it for 4 damage hitting Taiga.
He beats in with Factory.
I activate belcher again and kill him.

Top 4 Geoff - Landstill
Game 1
He wins the die roll. He keeps a poor hand but it has force of will.
I try to ramp up mana but an early Dark Ritual is countered. We play draw go for away as I try to get another way to generate 2 mana to cast Desperate Ritual while he is stuck on Plains- Factory.
Eventually I drop belcher and activate it for lethal.
Board
-3 Tinder Wall
-1 Wild Cantor
-1 Land Grant
+3 REB
+2 Pyroblast
Game 2
He drops Sea
I drop Lotus petal, Land Grant to which he Brainstorms, and drop Belcher and activate it, all with REB backup which stops the Force in his hand.

Top 2 Mulletus.
I scoop so we can leave and because I don't really care what duals I get since I already have a full set. Plus Mulletus actually has a good rating since I only do good at events that don't end up reported to the DCI.

Total Games 16, Total Mulligans by me 4. Total Mulligans by Opponents 8


Props
Kadilack for letting us stay at his place and running a great tournament
Jesse K, Gearhart, and Anwar for giving me their Negators. Big Negs provided a lot of morale support during the day.

Slops
It raining whenever I drove.

Congrats on making it to the finals, that deck seems very strong. How hard are mulliganing decisions with the deck? It would seem like once you've kept a hand the only real debate is EtW vs. Belcher which can generally be decided based on the matchup and acclerants in hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gekoratel

Congrats on making it to the finals, that deck seems very strong. How hard are mulliganing decisions with the deck? It would seem like once you've kept a hand the only real debate is EtW vs. Belcher which can generally be decided based on the matchup and acclerants in hand.

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Mulliganing decisions are very easy.
Do you have a win condition? If no Mulligan
Can you generate sufficent mana? If no Mulligan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ewokslayer

Round 3 Matt Abold (bigbear) Survival
Matt wins the die roll and I have to mulligan. Before I can see my new 6 we get deck checked so both of us get new hands, his 7 mine 6.

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You should never, ever get deckchecked after you've drawn your hand. Someone screwed up there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gekoratel

It would seem like once you've kept a hand the only real debate is EtW vs. Belcher which can generally be decided based on the matchup and acclerants in hand.

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The EtW vs. Belcher decision is fairly simple, too. If your opponent has a reasonable chance to stop one, go for the other. If your opponent can't stop either, Belcher generally kills faster. If your hand only makes 4 mana (after tutors), and EtW will be lethal in 2 turns, go for EtW (EtW will be guarenteed compared to relying on ripping mana sourcesto activate Belcher, and non-lethal Belch's are terrible).

The decisions trees are extremely simple. Really the only other things to keep in mind is that if your opponent was on the play and went Island/blue Fetch go, that you probably want to play Belcher with a left over mana source in play to avoid getting Dazed out of an otherwise winnable game.

Awesome job!

Congrats on your finish !

A quick suggestion: I'd change the 3 REB and 2 Pyroblast in the SB by 1 REB and 4 Pyroblast; Pyroblast can target any permanent or spell, i.e. you can up the storm count by Pyroblasting a land or whatnot (that doesn't happen often but sometimes 2 more Goblins in play helps).

Yeah tht was the worst possible match i couldve got in the top 8. I began to stabalize after you whiffed with charbelcher game 2 but you drew like 2 rite of flame off the top. Another big misplay was when I cabal therapied naming dark ritual cuz i thought belcher was 4 to activate very big misplay. But anyway congradulations on the finish.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ta Jugs

Yeah tht was the worst possible match i couldve got in the top 8. I began to stabalize after you whiffed with charbelcher game 2 but you drew like 2 rite of flame off the top. Another big misplay was when I cabal therapied naming dark ritual cuz i thought belcher was 4 to activate very big misplay. But anyway congradulations on the finish.

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It really didn't matter what you named. If you had named Rite of Flame the one that I drew would have just be able to produce the three necessary to activate belcher.

I wouldn't say stablize unless you had a way to destroy or needle Belcher.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aTn

Congrats on your finish !

A quick suggestion: I'd change the 3 REB and 2 Pyroblast in the SB by 1 REB and 4 Pyroblast; Pyroblast can target any permanent or spell, i.e. you can up the storm count by Pyroblasting a land or whatnot (that doesn't happen often but sometimes 2 more Goblins in play helps).

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That's really a minor technicality - the only times it would matter is going from Storm 4 to 5 (8 guys to 10 guys) or from Storm 9 to 10 (18 guys to 20 guys).

Have you tested the list with Street Wraith over Dark Ritual? If so, what's it like going back to the build running Dark Ritual? What did you like better/worse?

Street Wraith is not Tournament Legal thus I didn't test it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ewokslayer

It really didn't matter what you named. If you had named Rite of Flame the one that I drew would have just be able to produce the three necessary to activate belcher.

I wouldn't say stablize unless you had a way to destroy or needle Belcher.

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I know it wouldnt have mattered but the point is that I still named the wrong card. Its true I didnt really stabalize but I thought I was in a decent position I didnt realize how fast the deck can recover.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ta Jugs

I know it wouldnt have mattered but the point is that I still named the wrong card.

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I don't even think naming dark ritual was wrong neccessarily.
I think I only had access to red mana via a mox, and I didn't cast whatever was in my hand that means my hand wasn't
LED, Lotus Petal, Land Grant, Wild Cantor, or Bayou. Everything else was fair game.

Quote:

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Its true I didnt really stabalize but I thought I was in a decent position I didnt realize how fast the deck can recover

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I figured you were screwed.
I guess I was right.

Nice report, and nice list, Brian. I've been playing around with a very similar decklist for awhile... 9 cards off. I ran 4 Spoils, 4 Infernal Tutor over 4 Wish and 4 Desperate Ritual, and the fourth Tinder Wall over the 4th Belcher (being that there were 8 tutors for it). I tested your build and I have to say I can see why you made pretty much every single choice you did. The list is extremely consistent and goddamn near perfect.

Occasionally I found myself wishing that I was running Infernal Tutor in the Burning Wish slot, but it could really go either way. Obviously you get more utility and protection out of Wish, but Infernal lets you get both different win conditions, and it also lets you find accelleration when that's the missing piece of the puzzle. You can always Wish into Tutor, but that's obviously a much slower play.

Aside from that, the only question I have is why you run the fourth Cantor over the fourth Tinder Wall? The color fixing is nice, but the net gain in mana from the Wall seems like it's going to be more beneficial more of the time. I may be saying this from a skewed perspective, since some of my testing was done with Infernal in place of Wish, in which case you have 4 more black imprint targets for Mox when you need them. Still, though... you really think Cantor is more important than Wall? I find myself imprinting them on Moxen more often than not.

Anyway, congratulations on your win, and congratulations also on the decklist. I wouldn't hesitate to call it within one card of being absolutely perfect. Now let's see you beat Hulk Flash. :tongue:

If you have the time, I encourage you to start a thread for the deck in the Open forum. It seems like a strictly superior build to the Belcher lists of yore, and it's obviously proven itself in a competitive environment.