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Oh, absolutely. We have chump blockers in this format and shenanigans like Pyrokenesis. A two-turn clock of 10 green men can turn into a 3 or 4 turn clock if you run into enemy dudes. 14 or 16 critters is much harder to stop from overrunning towards the dome.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Legend
No one really plays Pyrokinesis anymore. And if they decide to burn a red card in addition to the Pyrokinesis AND...let's say they drop a 1/1...You're still looking at 9-10 damage and a two turn clock if you Warrens for 14. Pyrokinesis would be placed in a deck that runs primarily red cards, which you destroy. There are no such thing as chump-blockers against Belcher. You're being overrun by a horde of ankle-biting Goblins and it will happen turn one, two at the latest and they'd have to have a legitimate turn-one creature drop that matters, which it doesn't. Even Lackey doesn't matter if you hold back a dude or two and get in there (assuming you're referring to the definitive turn-one drop). I did this in Hadley, and it worked to perfection. Even if your opponent buys themselves one more turn, they dropped a turn-one man so that means they're obviously playing an aggro variant (at least). That spells trouble when they're staring down twelve to fourteen Goblins compared to their one.
Those dudes are red, btw.
If I could clear something up: I don't think anyone was ever suggesting that manamorphose allows you to keep hands w/o a win condition.
Also, there are situations when it is not correct to just dump your hand on the table and go for 12-14 goblin tokens - especially when you know your opponent can deal with them (read: in belchers bad matchups). The issue of Manamorphose vs. Wild Cantor is somewhat irrelevant against aggro. If you are in a situation where you want to have resources left over after casting ETW Manamorphose can let you do this and have more cards in hand afterwards than Wild Cantor would.
and this is the obvious argument for wild cantor, probably every belcher players has been in this exact situation: able to make 2 mana with an untapped Belcher in play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
It all depends on what you're playing against. I played against mono-blue control in the finals of a recent large tournament and I would have just Emptied the Warrens for like six if I had it in my opening grip. It's about match-ups and knowing how much to Empty for.
It would also be especially painful if someone countered Manamorphose over Cantor because, assuming you have RR floating (off Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, etc.), casting Cantor with one R left, you at least can cast something beyond the fact. It's like a larger valve to channel your mana through to fix it: The larger the investment the harder the fall.
This is another reason I hated running Seething Song in Belcher. Manamorphose is yet another spell that screams "If you counter me, I fizzle."Quote:
Originally Posted by A Legend
My point exactly. That's why Dark Ritual is so good in this deck and so few people play it anymore; It's cheap acceleration and it can make your opponent scratch their head whether or not to counter it. Plus, it helps when your opponent casts Ill Gotten Gains and you have a Bayou untapped with a Belcher sitting there collecting dust. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
Yeah the control player with Force in hand does lick their chops at the hopes of seeing Seething Song. If I play against control, I'll Warrens for like six and I'm fine with it (assuming I have it in the opening grip). Fetch-lands help the cause too.
I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but 100% of the time I would rather get a manamorphose countered rather than the spell I was going to play after it.
Which is why you play the cheaper, more efficient solution.
Simply put:
If you go fishing regularly (that's right, I said fishing), you can become a master with this deck.
So they piss away a counter on Manamorphose rather than either the better/more necessary acceleration or the Belcher or the Wish that you still have in hand?Quote:
Originally Posted by A Legend
Yay.
If they're got counters, this seems almost preferrable.
Edit: Looks like this was covered while I was still typing the above. Nevermind.
Oh, does Belcher normally have two extra mana and a card in hand that it can piss away baiting counterspells now? This is news to me. Here I was thinking it was pretty tight on mana most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by m03
so, just out of curiosity, what exactly does "cret" in CRET belcher stand for.. does it have something to do with the ETW in the deck? or is it like named after its cteator or what... i'm baffled by what cret could stand for, i've tried to go over many, many accronymns in my head and can't seem to find one that makes sense
It's the name of the team that built the original "Good" list.Quote:
Originally Posted by MTL10
Which would you rather have countered, if it's going to happen anyway?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
Which would you rather counter, if you were the opponent?
I'm working under the assumption that you would cast it early (like Taiga -> Tinder Wall -> Manamorphose), rather than late in the chain (off of Seething Song, etc. as the last spell before Belcher, EtW, Wish).
Casting it late in the chain IS risky and potentially foolish.
does "cret" stand for anything? or is that actually the name of the team... if so, what a weak name lol.. CRET! ooooh intimidating hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTL10
Charles' Rear Entry, according to Google.
I'm only answering the second part, deal with it. I don't care which one I counter, as long as it stops you from going off that turn. Your deck tends to beat itself fairly frequently when facing disruption, so the more chances I get to pull said disruption off the top of my library, the better.Quote:
Originally Posted by m03
So if someone goes SSG, Rite of Flame, Manamorphose, you're going to counter that? Doesn't it seem wiser to counter whatever they channel the mana into?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
No, but it's pretty easier to draw into more acceleration, especially if you've only spent a card or two to get the point of playing Manamorphose. Countering a Manamorphose doesn't seem like it'll accomplish very much, especially if it's early on in the chain of accelerants.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
Nice attitude.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
I changed my post above to clarify my point (prior to your post...but you must have hit reply before seeing it), however invalid it may be.
Generally speaking, 2 mana from Belcher isn't scary. 4 mana is scary. Let's say you go Land, Petal, Rite, SSG, Manamorphose. I counter it all day long. There are ways to play around Force of Will with this deck, obviously. My point is, in what situation - when you can't already win without Manamorphose, and you can't do exactly the same thing with Cantor for less mana invested - is Manamorphose going to win you the game where Cantor would lose it?Quote:
Originally Posted by b4r0n
That's a very good point. There are definitely a few (double Tinder Wall comes to mind), and the potential for extra storm can be relevant. But the more I think about it, the more it seems that you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare The Great
That's a much clearer way of looking at the issue than how A Legend was arguing against it.