[Deck] Belcher

I think that the deck might look something like this, in order to take advantage of Ritual:
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 LED
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual (Easier to make R than B, and you can't get threshold easily in this deck, unlike TES/FT)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Manamorphose
4 Wild Cantor

For a non-Ritual list, the big changes would be -4 Dark Ritual, +4 Seething Song, -4 Wild Cantor, +4 Street Wraith.

So you have 12 ways to cast a Dark Ritual in this deck. Is that enough to warrant its inclusion?

Why aren't you running Seething Song? It makes things a LOT better when you have it IMOP. Also I see that people are afraid to run Spoils of the Vault, literally no list has them in it, I would highly recommend running them as when you run more black cards you can afford to run more black rituals (more to imprint on Chrome Mox) and better mana adders. Really with the addition of Manamorphose you don't need Tinder Wall anymore. you can play more Cabal Rituals! Tinder Wall was always annoying to me since it is the only green card in the deck you spend mana on and on more than one occassion it has been totally useless due to its casting cost and sat in my hand. It also imprints on Chrome Mox and adds green ... how useless.

Part of the problem with Seething song is that it makes a lot of your acceleration much worse versus FoW, because usually, if you cast it you've invested at lest two other pieces of acceleration into it. That measn that if the opponent (correctly) Forces the Song, you're not only -1 card, but you're -3 mana.

Compare to Dark Ritual. Ritual can be cast off of one piece of acceleration. So, if your opponent Forces it, you're -0 cards and -1 mana.

If either resolves, however, you still get the +2 mana. Therefore, Ritual is better.

Tinder Wall is better than Song for the same reasons, especially if you cast the Wall off of a Taiga.

The only problem with the Ritual is that a) the mana it produces is black, which can hurt sometimes, and b) you need black mana to cast it, which you only have 81% of the time.

I can't honestly stand the whole concept behind people being afraid of Force of Will. It doesn't matter. Use the best possible acceleration spells and win. If someone has a Force of Will, it's at their discretion when they want to use it. You have to learn to play through it.

You have 11 mindeck win conditions, only 3 of which have Storm.

In roughly 40% of all game 1s, and 90% of all game 2 and 3s, you'll be facing a Force of Will.

Playing less "All in" type acceleration, like Seething Song, means that you can rebuild after it without getting completely wrecked.

Put another way, why does nobody with an R/G list play Channel the Suns? After all, it's better than a do-nothing card like Street Wraith...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

You have 11 mindeck win conditions, only 3 of which have Storm.

In roughly 40% of all game 1s, and 90% of all game 2 and 3s, you'll be facing a Force of Will.

Playing less "All in" type acceleration, like Seething Song, means that you can rebuild after it without getting completely wrecked.

Put another way, why does nobody with an R/G list play Channel the Suns? After all, it's better than a do-nothing card like Street Wraith...

---

That logic is completely flawed. Do you have any idea how long it will take to rebuild after getting a Seathing Songs countered?

The investment is huge. And if you cant go off turn 1 (but can resolve a belcher) you will have a lot more chances of drawing a ritual effect you can cast in the following turns without the Seathing Songs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore

That logic is completely flawed. Do you have any idea how long it will take to rebuild after getting a Seathing Songs countered?

The investment is huge. And if you cant go off turn 1 (but can resolve a belcher) you will have a lot more chances of drawing a ritual effect you can cast in the following turns without the Seathing Songs.

---

You are not comprehending my staement.

Seething song is the sort of "all-in" acceleration I was talking about not playing. That means that you can rebuild more quickly after the Force of will.

Lrn2parse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

Playing less "All in" type acceleration, like Seething Song, means that you can rebuild after it without getting completely wrecked.

---

By this logic, LED would also be a bad card to play; discarding your hand is the epitome of going "all in". Point is, neither LED nor Song should be disregarded because of the mere chance that they'll be countered. They help you to win, and that's enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

Put another way, why does nobody with an R/G list play Channel the Suns? After all, it's better than a do-nothing card like Street Wraith...

---

Channel the Suns costs 4, which is as much as your win conditions. It also only nets you 1 mana, and requires green. There's no good reason to run it, unlike Street Wraith, which can be considered to "reduce" your deck size by 4 and allow for greater consistency. I fail to see how your argument is at all relevant.

What you're missing is that when LED gets countered, you lose no mana, and are +1 on cards. And in the one situation where you would sacrifice LED (after a wish, without passing priority) you'll probably lose to FoW on the Wish first, since you'd only have two cards in hand at most. If you play LED to, say, activate Charbelcher, you win. So it is different.

People who don't see the difference between Seething Song getting countered and Dark Ritual getting countered are being ignorant, the mana investment into Dark Ritual is less than the mana investment into Seething Song, so getting Dark Ritual countered is easier to recover from than getting Seething Song countered. If the choice is between Seething Song and Dark Ritual, then the answer is going to be Dark Ritual.

No one is saying Seething Song is bad, we're saying any 1 for 2 or 2 for 3 accelerant would be superior.

Off tangent, Channel the Suns isn't so bad, if it's the difference between activating Belcher on the same turn you cast it and 6 mana for Burning Wish -> Empty the Warrens, I'd consider it in R/g Belcher over Manamorphose, especially if you're running Living Wish -> Slithermuse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by A Legend

I can't honestly stand the whole concept behind people being afraid of Force of Will. It doesn't matter. Use the best possible acceleration spells and win. If someone has a Force of Will, it's at their discretion when they want to use it. You have to learn to play through it.

---

Is there anything more that needs to be said after this? After all the "oh .. this is better because .... or what if they counter this ...." playing suboptimal acceleration like Tinder Wall instead of Seething Song just because your opponent may counter a few spells will result in a deck that is just that ... suboptimal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pulp_Fiction

Is there anything more that needs to be said after this? After all the "oh .. this is better because .... or what if they counter this ...." playing suboptimal acceleration like Tinder Wall instead of Seething Song just because your opponent may counter a few spells will result in a deck that is just that ... suboptimal.

---

Dude, if you think Tinder Wall is suboptimal you have no clue what you're talking about, Tinder Wall is the second best ritual in the deck.

I'm sorry but I think it is wrong to just ignore the fact that you will have to face disruption over the course of a tournament. I wont argue with you that seething song is more fun (maybe even better) to goldfish with, but not every player is going to just let you just goldfish every game. If an opponent has a force in hand, and they know what they're doing, they wont hold their force until you try to drop a win condition (because ETW doesn't care about force) - they'll point that force at the accelerant that you've invested the most mana into. In other words, running high mana cost accelerants is something we should be trying to avoid if possible in order to improve our nightmare matchups. The problems is we also need a critical mass of accelerants to ensure that we can combo out quickly, so we have been stuck with seething song.

Think about this from the control player's perspective. Whenever I sit down against belcher with thresh/landstill I practically pray for them to try and resolve a seething song so I can force it and watch them fizzle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sunshine

If an opponent has a force in hand, and they know what they're doing, they wont hold their force until you try to drop a win condition (because ETW doesn't care about force) - they'll point that force at the accelerant that you've invested the most mana into.

---

Right, if they have a FoW, then they should be targeting any mana accelerant that puts you over 4 mana, regardless of what it is. If you go Land -> Tinder Wall -> Rite of Flame -> Desperate Ritual, then they should be countering Desperate Ritual.

Ultimately, the results are the same though, right? So you might as well run Seething Song anyway.

And now for something completely different ...

With al this talk about playing dark ritual without bayou i started thinking.
Could we play orims chant main now?

That might be something to think about because if if whe could do this than force becomes a lot less of a problem.

Its just a thought so don't shoot me for saying this.:rolleyes:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pulp_Fiction

Is there anything more that needs to be said after this? After all the "oh .. this is better because .... or what if they counter this ...." playing suboptimal acceleration like Tinder Wall instead of Seething Song just because your opponent may counter a few spells will result in a deck that is just that ... suboptimal.

---

Are you serious? Tinder Wall is the heart and soul of this deck.

I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about or what you said. I play both in my build, which is what any good Belcher deck should play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by m03

Right, if they have a FoW, then they should be targeting any mana accelerant that puts you over 4 mana, regardless of what it is. If you go Land -> Tinder Wall -> Rite of Flame -> Desperate Ritual, then they should be countering Desperate Ritual.

---

That's not all together true. See, a control player might just let you get to four mana because they think you're going to cast a Goblin Charbelcher or Burning Wish, then counter it. But little do they understand you could Empty the Warrens - which is what you should try and mulligan into if you know your opponent is playing heavy control. I've fallen victim to the previous logic, and this is where my memo comes from. If you don't open game two with a R.E.B. or Empty the Warrens, you should mulligan. If you're opponent keeps their opening hand, then you know you made the right choice.

And to be openly honest about this deck, it really feels like there is no such thing as an "optimal" build, only an optimal pool of cards. I'm sure Pulp Fiction's deck can combo out turn one. So can mine. I bet Breath's deck does it often too. But, unfortunately, some people don't understand how fragile this combo deck is and that it is that way in nature. That was how it was originally intended to be: Blazing speed and a win condition, that's it. Of course, you could always try running Orim's Chant - which would be kind of cool with Channel the Suns and Manamorphose.

But again, you're sacrificing acceleration for defense. But that's the big question now, isn't it?

If your opponent doesn't know that decks with lots of Red rituals run motherfucking Empty the Warrens, he's either a terrible player or has zero experience with Vintage, Legacy, or Extended.

The thing is that your opponent shouldn't be forcing anything that puts you over 4 mana. Because Empty the Warrens is only going to be the kill card 3/11~27% of the time. He should instead wait to Force the much more likely Belcher or Burning Wish. Even in the situation where you have the Empty, your FoW-palying opponent will most likely have an answer, especially after sideboard.

The reason that Seething Song is different than other accelearion is because once it gets Forced, you've spent 3 pieces of acceleration on it, and then you get crushed because you have 3 cards in hand and no mana in your pool.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

The thing is that your opponent shouldn't be forcing anything that puts you over 4 mana. Because Empty the Warrens is only going to be the kill card 3/11~27% of the time. He should instead wait to Force the much more likely Belcher or Burning Wish. Even in the situation where you have the Empty, your FoW-palying opponent will most likely have an answer, especially after sideboard.

The reason that Seething Song is different than other accelearion is because once it gets Forced, you've spent 3 pieces of acceleration on it, and then you get crushed because you have 3 cards in hand and no mana in your pool.

---

27% of the time is enough to warrant countering the acceleration, the counter is still damaging Belcher's game plan enough to be worth it regardless and you can't risk the 27% of the time Empty the Warrens makes you look like a dumb ass because you decided to be greedy.

It really depends. Because let's assume that the opponent has played 3 accelerants, so he has three mana in his mana pool, and is obv. holding one kill condition, so that he has 3 unknown cards in hand. Then, he plays a 1-mana accelerator.

If you counter, you basically lose. Because your opponent has, a hypothetical 11 win cons, 4 street Wraith, and 45 acceleration, so that there's little to no chance that he's holding at least two more win conditions, which is what you would need to have your counter be effectful. Otherwise, he ramps up to that 4 mana through your counters and plays what he was gonna play anyway. 8/11 of the time. Or, he could cast Burning Wish, and find something good anyway.

With a two-mana accelerator, countering it makes more sense, because your opponent has a (39/49) 50% chance of not holding enough accelerators to get back up to four mana. But still, the fact that he could Wish for a storm win con and win later means you might want to hold off. Because he could storm for then the next turn.

Which brings me to the point that if your opponent plays a seething song off of three or four mana, you should counter, and then laugh. Because he can't recover.

So, the only time it's right to counter going above four mana is when it's with a Seething Song