What can you say about your experience with serum powder?
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What can you say about your experience with serum powder?
Serum Power is extremely strong in Belcher. Many people dismiss it, but your 1st turn win % goes up drastically when you play it. I run 4 in my board, so as to not give away what deck I am playing game 1. If I Serum Powder mull g1, any blue player would be stupid not to mulligan to Force of Will.
Indeed?? I feel a bit "vulnerable" wihtout burning wish in the board but maybe you're right with powder we are closer to a SInq, speaking about the t1 %.Quote:
Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust
@Pulp: Could mox be a cantrip in your list?? You have 12 ritual which is good, but just 3 cantrips (without the "cantrip" effect of powder). Do you really need that mana generation level??
That's a good idea, keeping it in the sb. What do you take out for it g2 and g3?Quote:
Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust
My list has 4 Street Wraith instead of Manamorphose, so I usually board them out for games 2 and 3. Manamorphose is the worst card in traditional 2c Belcher lists, so those are the first to go.
In some of the more recent lists that have been popping up on SCG events, you would board out 2 Chrome Mox and 2 Pyretic Ritual.
Boarding out IMS's in Belcher is wrong, especially when the resource stays around to keep producing mana.
@GoldenCid: I REALLY like Serum Powder. I used to play BW in Belcher a while ago but ... I have just come to dislike it. The card is to reliant on LED to go off and it gets Spell Snared, the funny thing is, a lot of people try and save Snare for BW ... which makes Powder and ur rituals even better. With Powder, you don't care, you just mulligan till you get a wincon. The turn 1 combos with SP are just ridiculous.
I would never cut Chrome Moxes, ever. You need as many IMS as possible in a deck like this, especially ones that hang around and activate Belcher or are for later use if a second combo is necessary.
@Dust: Why would you ever run Street Wraith over Probe? Also, Belcher is so balls to the wall .. who cares if they know what you are playing. The deck is already just go big or go home, so why not embrace that and make it as fast as possible? I really feel like BW adds a lot of inconsistency to a deck that is already not the strongest, but easily the fastest (SI aside). Although, in terms of turn 1 combo (not killing the opponent) I would say Belcher is every bit as if not faster than SI and a lot better against blue (due to EtW).
I usually run 4 Probe and 4 SW in my lists. In some events I have played in, I've stole multiple g1s against blue players not knowing what I am playing. In all of those cases, Serum Power might have revealed my plan, and had them mull to Force. Game 2, everyone knows what you are up to, so it doesn't matter as much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulp_Fiction
Chrome Mox is great, but obviously sucks in multiples. For consistency, I don't think 4 is the correct number.
Can you give the reason for playing four Probe and four Street Wraith in your deck? My personal experience is that those eight cards interfere with your ability to evaluate your opening hand correctly, and putting them into a deck that lives and dies on its opening hand isn't the right call. In fact, I would contend to you that Street Wraith and Probe are actually worse in multiples than Chrome Mox would be, because I think that looking at two Street Wraiths in your hand and going "Well, this could be anything" is so much worse for consistency than what double Chrome Mox does to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Namida
This is what I had established in my head but unable to put into words. Also, I like CMox in multiples. I opened this hand against Burn on the draw: Belcher, 3x CMox, Pyretic Ritual, Rite, Petal. Naturally I drew a colored spell next turn and cast Belcher and passed. Next turn I activated it with the 3 CMox and flipped 8 cards and mis-fired. Next turn I won. I love the fact that it sticks around. Belcher is all about opening hands, sometimes you have to pass the turn after just dropping it, its nice to have mana sources available for later.
The deck is already light in IMS anyway, don't cut it down. I don't even have room for 4x Probe OR 4x SW and I don't even play BW. Run the max amount of rituals you can before dabbling in those cards. I could see Probe in the Manamorphose spot since it is the weakest in the deck but .. running it over anything that adds mana seems wrong.
i agree with the opinion that free cantrips are bad in belcher, but probe is a different case. itīs ability to reveal you opponentīs hand is very, very important and it justifies probe to be in - 4x at least!
I'm not entirely sure this is the case, either. I'm willing to be proven wrong here, but my opinion on the matter is that the information isn't really something I think this deck can effectively utilize. To be frank, the deck is playing nothing but mana and win conditions--I don't understand how knowing your opponent's hand is really going to effect your decisions, in most circumstances. How often will you look at your opponent's hand and have it positively effect gameplay in that you were able to see that your opponent had a spell that you could have played around yet would not have played around if not for looking at your opponent's hand?Quote:
Originally Posted by tesla
Maybe the information given by probe is more valuable in a BW build where you can search (not in a highly efficient manner, i must adimit) for some answers...Quote:
Originally Posted by Namida
I really have no idea why you would bother with cantrips when you have Pyretic Ritual, Chancellor of the Tangle and Grim Monolith to choose from, if you can play 11 threats and 49 mana sources then you probably should play 11 threats and 49 mana sources.
Pyretic Ritual is a no brainer, Chancellor of the Tangle and Grim Monolith are debatable, but I don't see how Gitaxian Probe can really save you if you see a counter because you have to play into it anyway.
Has anyone tried Chancellor of the Tangle? Considering that Belcher only cares about its opening hand, this could be pretty good. +4 ESG, potentially.
it technically could be even better because it can make the mana then get imprinted on chrome mox.
Yes, if you don't mind top decking a "dud" every now and then I find it pretty useful to have +4 ESG for Tinder Wall, I typically run it and Pyretic Ritual.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
Daze, spellpierce, spell snare, mindbreak trap: all of those you cannot play into but can play around. Another benefit is when you play against non-blue deck and opponent boards trap, he canīt bluff and has to mull into it.
Imagine that situation: you play against maverick, second game, after board and on the draw. you can go off but also you can put swarm and go off next turn. How you decide? There is a risk of trap when you combo 1st turn but he can put teeg or cannonist if you wait. Thanx to probe, this is no longer a hard decision.
And i belive there are tons of situations where you really appreciate probe in your opening hand.
Perhaps I'm underestimating the ability of this deck to fight through hate, but I don't think that a deck with no disruption/protection has much to offer when it comes to playing around spells. The only thing you can do in most situations is to pass the turn to hope you draw the perfect cards to dodge situational counters, and that seems like a poor decision because you're giving your opponent more turns to interact with you if not outright kill you. I'm also assuming that you should automatically be playing around certain cards when the opportunity arises that you are able to do so, and therefore you don't need to devote a slot to affirming your actions at the sake of messing with your opening hands.
Your non-blue opponent is foolish if they try to bluff you instead of mulliganning to the spells they could actually play to interact with you. I also think it's wrong to side Xantid Swarm in against Maverick. Mindbreak Trap is admittedly bad for you, but I'm not going to slow my deck down and put potentially dead cards in for the sake of dodging a card I can't be sure my opponent has, especially when it would turn on the hate I'm almost 100% sure I will be facing in the form of a Gaddock Teeg, if not Thalia, Stony Silence, or Canonist. In this way, I don't think your example is a hard decision because I will always play around Teeg before I play around a Mindbreak Trap. Even if I know my opponent has sided in Mindbreak Trap, I'm going to force them to have it instead of letting them try to put anything else against me.
I also feel like the number of opening hands that have a mixture of cards that allow you to make a real gameplay choice and Probe to aid in that choice, like in your example, is a number that is very low. At the least, I feel like the number of hands that you're forced to mulligan because you'd need Probe to replace itself with initial mana or a win condition is much higher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Namida
This is very reasonable argumentation wich i understand. I just win many times thanx to probe and thats a fact.
You guys will probably hate me, but i think that probe is the main reason of the recent success of the belcher. A lot of top 16 at SCG open and invitational, where playset of "peepholes" were in EVERY decklist.