[Deck] Belcher

There are three choke points in the list that expose the vulnerability of the deck. Manamorphose, Seething Song and Burning Wish/Belcher. Getting rid of one of those is fantastic. Not only that but the Probe is +1 storm, draw a card, very synergistic with the ETW route. Your life total doesn't matter your playing combo. The deck doesn't support Opal well, but I think it supports Opal better than the 4th chrome mox. I don't have the math to back it up, just testing, but I think running the one Opal reduces your mulls from multi Chrome Mox hands. That's me though and I agree it's unorthodox. The only bonus of seeing your opponents hand with probe is if your holding belcher and etw in your hand, you see their packing fow you slow roll with whatever your goblin count is, if not then your green light to go off. It will probably help you every fifteenth game vs control. I like the new green guy that gives mana, he might be a four of, this deck doesn't play for the long game so he is kind of Belcher's speed. Need to get a set and test though.

Another point about probe that hasn't been brought up yet is that Misstep hits it. While you may not think that's relevant and a blue player wouldn't waste a counter on it, they would. If they knew anything about belcher they would know that Tinder Wall and Rite of Flame are the only 1cc in the deck and Belcher can go off without them easily. I don't think it's safe to call Probe an autoinclude by any means.

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Originally Posted by defector

There are three choke points in the list that expose the vulnerability of the deck. Manamorphose, Seething Song and Burning Wish/Belcher. Getting rid of one of those is fantastic.

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What do you mean by this. Nearly every single card in the deck is a "choke point". An opponent with a counter can hit pretty much anything up to EtW and we fall flat on our face.

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Not only that but the Probe is +1 storm, draw a card, very synergistic with the ETW route. Your life total doesn't matter your playing combo.

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That's not what's at issue here. I think if you run the deck for a few hundred iterations, you'll find that the mana fixing is quite relevant, whereas the lottery you play every time you play Probe is really crappy.

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The deck doesn't support Opal well, but I think it supports Opal better than the 4th chrome mox. I don't have the math to back it up, just testing, but I think running the one Opal reduces your mulls from multi Chrome Mox hands.

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Sure it reduces your mulls from multi-Chrome Mox hands....because there are fewer Chrome Moxes. I could play a Forest in place of a Chrome Mox and it would reduce mulls from multi-Chrome Mox hands, but it wouldn't be good.

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I like the new green guy that gives mana, he might be a four of, this deck doesn't play for the long game so he is kind of Belcher's speed. Need to get a set and test though.

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Same. I think if you want to reduce Chrome Mox mulligans, this guy's gonna be your friend.

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Originally Posted by evanmartyr

What do you mean by this. Nearly every single card in the deck is a "choke point". An opponent with a counter can hit pretty much anything up to EtW and we fall flat on our face.

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This is how I see it.

Cards like Rite of Flame and Desperate Ritual aren't as devastating when they get countered because of the low amount of resources you put into them. You can recover from one of those getting countered, maybe even in the same turn. Seething Song requires that you put three mana into it, which means in most situations with this deck, that you got two-for-one'd if it got countered. Burning Wish and Belcher are your win conditions, so there's not much that needs to be said about how many resources you invest in them, nor what happens if they meet a counterspell. Manamorphose...I think that this is just how people feel about it. You're investing two mana into drawing a random card and getting your mana back most of the time when you cast it. It's a cantrip, but if it gets countered you're down two mana you didn't need to spend, and now you look silly. The feeling of getting your weakest spell countered probably makes it seem like the play of having that spell countered is more devastating than it really is.

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but if it gets countered you're down two mana you didn't need to spend

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Except frequently you really did need to spend it, since you ripped a hand with 2 ESGs and red rituals, or something.

Earlier in the thread I pointed out that the investment costs associated with Manamorphose were what made me excited for Probe. Having tried out Probe, it makes you slightly more resilient to a Force of Will targeting the wrong thing, but it also increases the likelihood of color screw by a significant amount. So with Probe, using your numbers, it'll be *relevant* 1/15 of the time against control, which is our bad matchup anyway. Against nearly everything else, it's worse than Manamorphose, because it doesn't do anything relevant.

Basically, the deck's a glass cannon. We only have a few avenues for improving it, and they're all super, super specific; generally, only direct upgrades to current cards, or hitting a critical mass of one type of card that allows us to cut a color or something. Until we get some other convenient, storm-ey, way to filter mana green into red, or are able to completely cut green mana sources from the deck, I wouldn't expect Manamorphose to leave the deck entirely.

If you wanted to, though, looking into a Mono-red build might be an interesting thought experiment, or possibly dropping green for black, or something. Without green, you could go heavier into artifacts, which would (I imagine) allow you to support Mox Opal better. I doubt it would be as fast as 1-land, though.

I agree with Namida's logic regarding choke points, I think those are the cards that control players let go or look to kill. Now mental misstep is probably going to make the merfolk match up very poor for belcher, that's life you can't beat all of them. On the other hand we improve with the new cards. I have given up on Opal completely, too inconsistent. Maybe the next route is some combo if filters like wraith and probe with fixers like manamorphose. Working on versions running various three of's, if I get anything interesting I'll post it. I'm doing everything in my power to not have the fourth chrome mox, we'll see how it goes. I have tried the red black version and it is also janky as hell. We need one more card, maybe in the next set:) On the other hand, probe makes us better and we still lose to merfolk.

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Originally Posted by evanmartyr

Except frequently you really did need to spend it, since you ripped a hand with 2 ESGs and red rituals, or something.

Earlier in the thread I pointed out that the investment costs associated with Manamorphose were what made me excited for Probe. Having tried out Probe, it makes you slightly more resilient to a Force of Will targeting the wrong thing, but it also increases the likelihood of color screw by a significant amount. So with Probe, using your numbers, it'll be *relevant* 1/15 of the time against control, which is our bad matchup anyway. Against nearly everything else, it's worse than Manamorphose, because it doesn't do anything relevant.

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That doesn't particularly come up often to me, the color restraints. I concede that this may not be the case for you, or maybe even most people. You're right that Manamorphose has a use, but it just isn't a use that is relevant often, though it's really good to have when it happens. A great majority of the time, I feel like it's basically just putting mana in to get the same mana out and draw a card.

I'm not arguing for the use of Probe. I think both cards aren't really good, but Manamorphose does more for the deck than Probe does. I was just trying to explain the "choke point" thing.

I'm going to try out some Belcher for shits and giggles. Seems easy enough when you can win on turn 1 through no resistance, but obviously, your opponents sometimes ruin the fun by playing counterspells, which is why the Swarms and Red Blasts come in Game 2. But what cards do you take out to board in that protection?

I tend to cut 1 Taiga, 4 Land Grant, 2 Manamorphose, 1 Chrome Mox.

That's a terrible SB plan. If you're expecting counters, you want every permanent mana source you can get your hands on to continue fighting them even if your first thrusts are parried. What you really need to do is take out some combination of pyretic ritual (lowest magnitude) seething song (sometimes important, like versus CB) and manamorphose (not actually any kind of business spell.)

I agree with Ozy on the sideboard, you need all permanent mana you can get your hands on. You'd be surprised how often wasteland can hurt this list even with only one land. I like the probe in the control match up, sometimes knowing what they have tells you whether or not you have to be conservative, and what you have to fight through. Test as much as you can, I like to bring in 4 swarm and 3 Guttural Response, cutting 3 Manamorphose and 3 pytetics, one Seething.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

I'm going to try out some Belcher for shits and giggles. Seems easy enough when you can win on turn 1 through no resistance, but obviously, your opponents sometimes ruin the fun by playing counterspells, which is why the Swarms and Red Blasts come in Game 2. But what cards do you take out to board in that protection?

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The guy who Top 8'd SCG LA with Belcher would say that it is only easy if you drink your weight in hard liquor.

As much as a cheerleader I've been for Manamorphose, they're the thing I take out for the Xantid Swarms. I haven't played many matches against "pure" control, and unless I start to see more I may cut down on the REBs in the SB since I only end up boarding one of them in against Merfolk and other blue/tempo decks...which might actually be a liability now, due to MMS.

But yeah, I can't think of a situation where boarding out Land Grant and your Taiga is a good call.

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That doesn't particularly come up often to me, the color restraints. I concede that this may not be the case for you, or maybe even most people. You're right that Manamorphose has a use, but it just isn't a use that is relevant often, though it's really good to have when it happens. A great majority of the time, I feel like it's basically just putting mana in to get the same mana out and draw a card.

I'm not arguing for the use of Probe. I think both cards aren't really good, but Manamorphose does more for the deck than Probe does. I was just trying to explain the "choke point" thing.

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Oh, I certainly understand the choke point thing. You summarized my argument nicely: Manamorphose does little, Probe does less. If they want to wreck you with a counterspell, they can do whether you play Manamorphose or not. Manamorphose also has these teeny little benefits that add up to it not ever really being a liability, unless your hand has no initial mana sources AND nothing to build into.

As for the Chrome Mox thing...I really don't get this aversion to it. There's no other mana source that I can think of that can replace a single copy of it, and much of the time you're winning with Goblin tokens anyway, meaning you can always play additional copies with no imprint solely for Storm.

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Originally Posted by lorddotm

The guy who Top 8'd SCG LA with Belcher would say that it is only easy if you drink your weight in hard liquor.

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That was one of the best tournament reports I've ever read. It was up there with Bryant Cook's GP Columbus report in sheer hilarity.

Otherwise, I have nothing constructive to add.

Is it odd that I actually feel Belcher could be positioned to do well at the GP this week?

In all the local Testing I have done with the deck, I only have had issues against decks that use Sphere of Resistance, and Merfolk. Most other Blue strategies I can beat in Games two and three without issue, or if I'm explosive enough, even game one. Xantid Swarm, IMHO is an amazing card that wins games. Locally, I seem to have tolerable match ups against Countertop Dreadnought, and some other countertop decks. Sea Stompy Is beatable, I can go off a turn faster than Ant, and I can bend zoo over and have my way with it. This is all locally though, and I know at the GP the players will be better than a lot of the bads in my area. I have found one deck though that completely hosed me, It was some weird mill deck that made me mill until I hit four lands, Running one land belcher, well, four lands doesnt happen.

...I would expect belcher to be very badly placed at the GP. I wouldn't be caught dead playing belcher at Providence. And yes, mind funeral is the tech against this deck but it costs 3 mana. I guess it matters if you're on the draw and go EtW for 10 or more dudes or you only get 8 goblins on the play or less.

If people misstep your gitaxian probe, let them. I honestly don't see why it's relevant that MM counters it. Because then you just go off and when you play another cmc 1 spell in the chain they'll slap themselves. I would play probe over manamorphose any day since street wraith was cut long ago for pyretic ritual/grim monolith.

Could noxious revival be useful here??

I think that Revival is too situational in a deck that is so front seven dependent, but that merits testing and a four of in the binder:)

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Originally Posted by defector

I think that Revival is too situational in a deck that is so front seven dependent, but that merits testing and a four of in the binder:)

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Do you suggest to test a full set?

Noxious revival could actually maybe do good in here. The good part about it is it is any card that you have played previously; need a win con? Put charbelcher that they countered on top. Need mana? Put a rite of flame on top etc. etc. but the question is always what to cut and how many would you run I wouldn't run 4 because it seems awkward to start with 2 in hand and not enough mana to cast a win con and win. Running 2 could be interesting though to add semi business spells to the deck. And it could be interesting in post board games like say they counter swarm you simply get swarm back on top and try to resolve it again. If they counter it a second time I would go for the win then and there because it's rare that a hand has more than 2 pieces of countermagic at that point.