[Deck] Belcher

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Originally Posted by magicmoocow

What are your thoughts on Chewers versus Sprees? Just because it'll kill a Chalice at one for one mana (whereas Spree'll cost two).

I don't think Infernal Tutor is that great. Can you give me a senario where you go off with it?

I'd really like 1-2 three mana or less spells that make a significant impact on the board in my favor, but can't seem to find them yet. now that I know Windfall is banned, the only one I can think of is something like Infernal Contract.

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Chalice at 1 AND thorn of amethyst, both of which are real pains.

Infernal Tutor is good any time you have six mana after wishing (simple with Song+LED or 2 LEDs or multiple Rites, etc. ) because you get to go wish->tutor->Warrens for extra storm. If you have six mana and 1-2 perm mana sources, you can even go for wish-tutor-belcher and win the next turn. It also makes wish and 9 mana an instakill, though I admit that's unlikely. It's also good if your wish with, say, 4 mana floating is Dazed, as you can then IT for a belcher and hope to topdeck to victory.

You can use recross the paths to stack your deck if you land granted, which might be good enough..

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Originally Posted by JohnBaltimore

I want MD Pyroblast for counter-hate, as well as removal against fish. What do you guys think?

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What do you guys think about Gutteral Response maindeck instead of REB? It's easier to cast on the fly with ESG, but obviously less versatile. Really the only blue permanent you want to counter is Counterbalance and that's hard to do unless you also have a SSG. Destroying it after it resolves is unlikely. Besides, if you haven't won in the first two turns you probably should've mulliganed. The main threat is still Force of Will.

I really like this decklist, however I'd run Pyretic Ritual instead of Manamorphose and make some changes to the SB:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall

4 Desperate Ritual
3 Guttural Response
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Seething Song

4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame

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

1 Taiga

Sideboard:
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Ingot Chewer (killing Chalice for R instead of RR is significant, but I'd leave one Spree as a Wish target)
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Flame Slash (an elegant answer to various creature threats)
1 Cave-In (I think 1 red card is easier than 1R, and against Zoo if you're facing hate bears and not Mindbreak Traps, then you can pitch REB/Response)
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree

I'd rather play Pyroblasts than Guttural response. Pyroblast allows to icnrease the storm count even against non -blue decks using exceeding mana off Rite of flame, Song, and Desperate Ritual.

Also pyroblast counters counterbalance, which is pretty huge for a combo deck I hear. Pyroblast > Guttural response 100% of the time. There is no reason to play guttural response over pyroblast since red mana is also abundant in this deck so the hybrid mana symbol most likely doesn't matter 99.99% of the time.

Also people PLEASE don't play red elemental blast unless you are running 4x pyroblast already and need more hate against blue. REB is strictly worse than pyroblast due to storm count reasons and being able to blast a land for +1 storm count is quite relevant.

Dark ritual .... How is pyroblast and REB any different .....?

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Originally Posted by danielcrocker

Dark ritual .... How is pyroblast and REB any different .....?

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They say 'Blue spell' and 'Blue permanent'. :D

pyroblast says:
Choose one - Counter target spell if it's blue; or destroy target permanent if it's blue.

while REB says:
Choose one - Counter target blue spell; or destroy target blue permanent.

The difference in the wording makes pyroblast better, since you do not have to target a blue spell
(9/16/2007 Note that Pyroblast can target any spell or permanent, not just a blue one. It checks the color of the target only on resolution.)
Therefore you can target one of your own spells with it, get +1 stormcount, and it will not counter the spell becouse its not blue.
You cannot target your own spells with REB becouse it says it has to be a blue spell

How effective is tendrils and goblin warstrike in the board ?

Tendrils is shite, to be frank. You're NOT Iggy Pop or TES. The double black, in those builds not running Black, is a PitA to get to with 10 Storm.

Goblin War Strike could be useful, but then you become a new deck....hmmm...

Infernal Tutor in the board...

So, in regards to this - turns out it can be quite relevant.

I was up a game in a match at a local Wednesday night Legacy tournament and a friend of mine is looking through my sideboard. "Infernal Tutor? That seems way worse than Diminishing Returns." I say "Yeah, I'm not sure of that card. It can add a storm if I have 6 mana floating and have cracked an LED to get it, but I'd usually just rather draw seven. If I have 11 mana somehow I can get and activate Belcher! It doesn't tend to come up all that often though!" We both chuckle and my opponent goes first.

"Taiga, go"

I go something like:

Lion's Eye Diamond
Lion's Eye Diamond
Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal
Elvish Spirit Guide into Tinder Wall into Grim Monolith
Sac the petals to play Burning Wish, sac one LED in response for RRR and then didn't count my mana and sac the other one in response for... UUU!
Get and play Diminishing Returns with RR floating and an untapped Monolith.
Now at this point some people might be slapping their foreheads. I didn't think 11 mana came up often. Well...

Shuffle my graveyard into my library, exile ten cards and get another 7 card hand with ANOTHER LED and ANOTHER Wish and enough mana to get Infernal Tutor for Belcher and win.

After the match both my opponent and my spectator called me a bad player because I almost threw away a game that I had handily and spend another five minutes doing it.

To be fair, I exiled away my Taiga! Not only is 11 mana relevant, I got to it twice! In one turn!

My list:

1x Taiga
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Grim Monolith
4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
4x Rite of Flame
3x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Pyretic Ritual
4x Seething Song

Sideboard:
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Shattering Spree
1x Simplify <-- Probably should be Reverent Silence
1x Goblin War Strike <-- Probably should be Flame Slash or Chain Lightning
1x Pyroclasm
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Ingot Chewer

I decided on the Pyretics AND the Monoliths so that I know if I need to mulligan. No mystery cards!

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Originally Posted by danielcrocker

How effective is tendrils and goblin warstrike in the board ?

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I've had the chance to Tendrils a couple times, it's pretty badass for sure, but the extra SB slot might come in handy more often. Goblin Warstrike has been amazing. The ability to wish for that when you have both a Wish and EtW in your hand, and thus increase your clock by 1 turn is really nice, especially when playing against sweepers which usually seem to get played one turn before they die :P

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Originally Posted by Vacrix

Pact doesn't belong in Belcher. Its just people trying to use tech from SI that really doesn't belong there. Belcher is a turn 3 combo deck. It can't use Pact effectively.

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Originally Posted by Deirex

I agree that pact does not belong in the deck but Belcher being a turn 3 deck? I'm assuming you take ETW tokens into account when you're saying that.
If I can't at least go off into whatever really on the first or 2nd turn I'd mulligan.

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A bit late to the conversation, but I'd like to add a couple of points. First of all, the source of that list with Summoner's Pact is MTGO, which doesn't have Land Grant, yet. Because of that absence, I've been testing landless 2 colour Belcher* on MODO and it performs better than you'd think. I usually go for a Tinder Wall with Pact. Also, I don't really want to switch out Pacts for Pyretic Ritual because Summoner's Pact is often a valuable source of green mana via Chrome Mox. To be honest, I haven't once drawn a Summoner's Pact and thought, "Shit, I wish you were a Land Grant!" Running landless Belcher I feel confident that I will never whiff once I activate Charbelcher and Summoner's Pact does help to facilitate that.

Also, it's usually the first card I sideboard out, which is something you can't really afford to do with Land Grant.

Speaking of sideboards... I haven't found one I like. So far, the only things I'm fairly happy with are Nature's Claim and Pact of Negation. Of course, I also have singleton Empty the Warrens, Goblin War Strike and Shattering Spree. So that's

4 Nature's Claim
4 Pact of Negation
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin War Strike
4 Xantid Swarm

I'm not so pleased with Swarm and might try Pyroblast in its place. Unfortunately, I haven't had much practice in difficult situations. I like Claim so far because it fills that same role as Pact and Land Grant when it comes to green and Chrome Mox, and it also takes care of random artifact and enchantments (*cough* Leyline *cough*). Frankly, I don't want to waste a Burning Wish looking for a Spree.

* Pretty much just a basic traditional green-red Belcher with no Land Grants (Summoner's Pact) or land (+1 Ritual).

whatsup? maybe someone can post some recent tournament reports?

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Originally Posted by magicmoocow

I decided on the Pyretics AND the Monoliths so that I know if I need to mulligan. No mystery cards!

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That's exactly what I'm thinking too. My list looks exactly like yours, but I'm using another Sideboard. For reference:

4 Autumn's Veil
4 Pyroblast
1 Chain Lightning
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Reverent Silence
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Simplify

I like Pyroblast/Autumn's Veil better than Xantid Swarm, because they allow to do action on turn 1. With Swarm I need to wait a round and the protection can be fucked up by spot removal. The rest is wishboard, since I don't see any reason to play Ingot Chewer. I have Shattering Spree in the wishboard to handle artifacts, and the only artifact I can't handle with that setup is Trinisphere. But a Trinisphere in play also doesn't get handled by Ingot Chewer, since it's very unlikely to get the mana to pay for him. I play both Simplify and Reverent Silence, because I don't wanna loose against a prison effect, if I didn't hit my Taiga already.

how is running both autumn's veil and xantid swarm not better than running less utility?

e.g.

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Autumn's Veil
3 Pyroblast (i wonder if this is needed anymore, could just be more utility)
1 Simplify/Reverent Silence (u do not need both)
1 Empty the Warrens (Goblin War Strike is 'win more')
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree

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Originally Posted by MMogg

A bit late to the conversation, but I'd like to add a couple of points. First of all, the source of that list with Summoner's Pact is MTGO, which doesn't have Land Grant, yet. Because of that absence, I've been testing landless 2 colour Belcher* on MODO and it performs better than you'd think. I usually go for a Tinder Wall with Pact. Also, I don't really want to switch out Pacts for Pyretic Ritual because Summoner's Pact is often a valuable source of green mana via Chrome Mox. To be honest, I haven't once drawn a Summoner's Pact and thought, "Shit, I wish you were a Land Grant!" Running landless Belcher I feel confident that I will never whiff once I activate Charbelcher and Summoner's Pact does help to facilitate that.

Also, it's usually the first card I sideboard out, which is something you can't really afford to do with Land Grant.

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Yes but traditional Belcher lists run BW and EtW, and when 7/11 of your win conditions don't win on the spot, Pact becomes a liability instead of an asset.
The only way I could see that build working is if you included something like Spoils of the Vault, and/or Plunge into Darkness.

Whats your build look like?

I'm also curious to see how people made lists with pact...this is what I came up with:

Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
2 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
3 [GP] Wild Cantor
1 [CST] Tinder Wall

// Spells
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [OV] Meditate
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
4 [MR] Spoils of the Vault
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [SHM] Manamorphose
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [DDE] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains

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Originally Posted by Vacrix

Yes but traditional Belcher lists run BW and EtW, and when 7/11 of your win conditions don't win on the spot, Pact becomes a liability instead of an asset.
The only way I could see that build working is if you included something like Spoils of the Vault, and/or Plunge into Darkness.

Whats your build look like?

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My current list is here:

http://www.mymtgo.com/view_deck.php?did=1719

I tried Spoils in a :b::g::r: Belcher build, but I ended up more colour-mana screwed than I end up screwed with this straight up :g::r: landless variant. Maybe I'll tinker around with a straight :b::r: version.

I would say my list's greatest strength is its consistency. I don't usually "fizzle" and if I have Beclher or Burning Wish in hand, I don't find I'm sitting there waiting for mana. It's greatest weakness is that I'm forced to mulligan amazing mana hands in search or Wishes or Belchers and with Spoils, that gives you more "business" to draw and so less need to mulligan. That said, so many times when I played Spoils Belcher I am left waiting for that all important initial mana source. Just hated it.

Color screw shouldn't be an issue if you have access to Wild Cantor, Manamorphose, and Pact-->Wild Cantor. If I played Pact in Belcher it would look something like this:

Pact Belcher:
Initial Mana - 20
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

Mana Filter - 6
4 Manamorphose
2 Wild Cantor

Rituals - 15
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
3 Seething Song

Other - 7
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Tinder Wall

Business - 12
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Plunge into Darkness

Its a really rough list as you can probably see. It forgoes Land Grant as starting mana in favor of Summoner's Pact. Pact also facilitates Culling the Weak. SI enables Culling the Weak with as few as 7 creatures, but long spell chains usually make it not a dead card while Belcher uses primarily its opening 7, which makes me think that 10 creatures MD is probably not enough to support Culling at the moment. Plunge is significantly worse than Spoils because it costs 1 less, but Spoils is amazing. I love that you can use it to find LED to activate Belcher.


@kinda
I'm confused as to how your list works. You have x4 Tendrils but no way to reach 10 storm consistently. Is Meditate any good?

I don't get the use of Wild Cantor. I'll probably add one as a singleton and see if there is ever a situation where I want to look for it. If I have :g: available and need red, then go for a Tinder Wall. If I have :r: available and need a :g: then go for Elvish Spirit Guide, which is also uncounterable mana. I'm just not sure when I would specifically need WC. He doesn't add to the mana, he's just a fixer, like Manamorphose, so I find it worse than Spirit Guides or Tinder Wall. I'm not usually colour screwed in the list I linked, I'm colour screwed when going tri-colour, which also doesn't run Pacts as far as I know.

That list doesn't look very good because SI has plenty of draw to refill its hand and this doesn't. Plunge looks for 1 card and that's for a 2 mana investment. The biggest problem with Belcher is that, apart from Chrome Mox, it's all non-reusable mana sources, which, to me, has a huge impact with cards like Spoils and Plunge as you have to invest precious mana and then maybe still need to wait. Spoiling into a needed LED to activate Belcher is indeed sweet, but way to situational to make it worth it.

That said, I'm still going to try to whip up a straight :b::r: Belcher list right now. :smile: